


Medicine

by ultra_violett



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Abusive Sonia Kaspbrak, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - No Pennywise (IT), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Beverly Marsh Knows Everything, Beverly Marsh Lives With Her Aunt, Bisexual Bill Denbrough, Bisexual Disaster Richie Tozier, Bisexual Richie Tozier, But it's only to help him figure out his sexuality, Drug Abuse, Drug Addiction, Drug Use, Eddie Kaspbrak & Beverly Marsh Are Best Friends, Eddie Kaspbrak is Bad at Feelings, Eddie Kaspbrak is Temporarily Dead, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, Frank Kaspbrak Lives, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Good Parent Frank Kaspbrak, Good Parents Maggie & Wentworth Tozier, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, I promise!, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Lesbian Beverly Marsh, M/M, Minor Eddie Kaspbrak/Beverly Marsh, Mutual Pining, Not Canon Compliant, POV Eddie Kaspbrak, Pansexual Mike Hanlon, Past Child Abuse, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Sexual Assault, Period-Typical Homophobia, Period-Typical Racism, Period-Typical Sexism, Racism, Racist Language, Richie Tozier is a Little Shit, Richie had a sister, Self-Harm, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Stanley Uris Has OCD, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide Attempt, Trans Mike Hanlon, genderfluid richie tozier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2021-02-18
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:27:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 29
Words: 44,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27108733
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultra_violett/pseuds/ultra_violett
Summary: "Jesus, Eddie, can't you see that you're killing yourself with these things?" Richie shakes the bottle of pills in his hand, just a bit. Just enough to make a small rattling sound. Eddie raises his hand, as though to grab them, but it quickly drops back down to his side. "Richie, I'm fine, okay? They help me. They make me better, because I'm sick." Richie shakes his head, tears noticeable in his eyes. "You're not sick. S-Stop fucking saying that!" Richie shouts, trying his best to hold the tears back. Eddie grabs the bottle of pills from Richie suddenly, taking advantage of the taller boy's moment of weakness. "Why?! It's the truth!" Richie shakes his head. "Eddie, please, put the bottle down, you're killing yourself." Eddie looks down at the orange bottle in his hand. "Why do you care?" Richie sighs, reaching up to push a few dark curls out of his face. "Because, Eddie. You mean just as much to me as that bottle of pills in your hand means to you. And I can't lose you."Or in which Richie Tozier is just trying to make a little more money on the side, and Eddie Kaspbrak needs his weekly fix of "medicine."
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Ben Hanscom/Original Female Character(s), Beverly Marsh/Original Female Character(s), Bill Denbrough/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 16
Kudos: 34





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, and welcome to yet another Reddie book! This book is going to include a lot of triggers, so please heed the warnings in the tags. If any of the things mentioned in the tags bothers you please leave now, and please don't read something that will trigger you.
> 
> I've also made a playlist for this book! Or course you don't have to listen to it while you read, I just think it might help set the mood a bit. It's your choice, though, but regardless, here is the playlist:
> 
> 1\. Medicine-Daughter
> 
> 2\. Wish You Were Gay-Billie Eilish
> 
> 3\. Heather-Conan Gray
> 
> 4\. Xanny-Billie Eilish
> 
> 5\. Everything I Wanted-Billie Eilish
> 
> 6\. Cough Syrup-Young The Giant
> 
> 7\. Sippy Cup-Melanie Martinez
> 
> 8\. Thinking About You-Alex Aiono
> 
> 9\. Colors(Stripped)-Halsey
> 
> 10\. Medication-Yungblud
> 
> 11\. Trees-Mccafferty
> 
> 12\. Why Am I Waiting-Papithbk
> 
> 13\. *Sobs Quietly*-Mom Jeans

_ Monday, October 18, 1993 _

There’s a knock on the front door, one that’s far harder than the knocks that usually land upon the oak wood. It’s so loud you can hear it all through the house, causing Eddie Kaspbrak to jump slightly before looking up from his algebra homework. Instantly, his heart skips a beat before beginning to beat even harder upon seeing flashing blue and red lights outside his bedroom window. 

When nobody answers the front door, there’s another harsh knock followed by a shout of “Open the door, now!” Eddie sighs shakily before standing from his desk and leaving his room, leaving the half done homework sheet sitting on the pristine white desk. The desk that has a shelf of pill bottles hanging above it, as well as a single blue inhaler.

Eddie opens the front door with teary eyes and shaky breathing. He itches for his inhaler, but he left it in his room, so of course he can’t go get it. Not with two angry looking police officers standing right in front of him. One is an angry, mean looking man with greying hair, the other a slightly nicer but still angry looking female with blonde hair tied up in a tight bun on the top of her head.

“Uhm, can I- Can I help you?” Eddie asks, not quite knowing what else to say. He’s never been good at talking to authority figures, especially not police.

“Are you Eddie Kaspbrak?” Eddie nods his head, unable to get the single word ‘yes’ to come out. “Where is your mother?” Eddie shrugs, though he knows damn well she left him here to visit her sister for the week, though not without a lot of arguing. She was so worried about her precious Eddie-Bear getting hurt or burning the house down while she was gone, but Eddie had assured her many times that he would be fine. And after about ten minutes of them arguing, Sonia had seemed to finally accept that Eddie wouldn’t stop until she allowed him to stay home, so she finally did.

“I think you do know, Eddie. Why don’t you come down to the station with us and answer a few questions?” Eddie shakes his head, but he knows that the question wasn’t actually a question. He knows it was a nice way of them saying that he needed to come with them and answer some questions. Which is what he did, with no resistance save for him telling them he needed to get his house key to lock the front door.

The woman, who he had learned was named Officer Jones, takes him through the halls of the station, and to a room with a nice, smiling woman with straight brown hair that hung down to her shoulders and nice hazel eyes.

“Hi, Eddie.” The woman’s kind voice called out to the boy as soon as he entered the room. The police officer that escorted him there closes the door without a word, leaving the two alone. Eddie eyes the chair sitting opposite the nice looking woman’s chair warily before finally taking the few steps over to it and sitting down.

She smiles at him the whole way, finally leaning forward on her desk with her hands clasped on the desk in front of her once he’s sat down. 

“Hi, Eddie. I’m Rebecca Morris, the woman who’s going to work your case. You can call me Becca, if you want.” Eddie nods, kind of lost. He’s been lost for a while. Sure, he knows this is about his mother’s constant neglect and abuse and drugging, but he still just can’t quite grasp everything going on. It’s all happening so fast. One minute he was doing his homework and the next he’s in a police station talking to a social worker that’s going to rehome him.

“Listen, Eddie, we’ve already found a few close family members you could live with and we’re doing background checks at the moment. But of course, we also need your opinion on this. And, you’re still going to have to go to court against your mother.” Eddie nods. Rebecca seems to sense he’s a bit confused, though, because she stops and analyzes him for a moment before asking a question. “Are you confused?” He nods again. “About what? I’m not going to judge you, and if you don’t feel like talking,” Rebecca reaches into a drawer next to her and pulls out a notepad and pen. “Use this.”

Eddie takes a deep breathe before thinking. What is he confused about? He knows what’s going on, why he’s here, but he doesn’t know how they found out. 

He almost takes the notepad to write that, but instead decides he’s not a child, and he can speak if he needs to say something.

“I just- How did you find out?” Rebecca sighs and leans back in her chair, still leaving the notepad and pen in front of Eddie, though. “An anonymous tip, from a nice, concerned classmate of yours.” Eddie sighs, instantly knowing who it is. It was Bill Denbrough, Eddie’s best friend since kindergarten. He’s been okay with keeping Sonia’s neglect and abuse on the down low until he heard that she was drugging Eddie. But Eddie wouldn’t have thought he would actually turn her in.

“Bill Denbrough.” He murmurs, and though Rebecca doesn’t confirm it, he can tell from the sad look on her face that it’s true. 

“So, what now?” Rebecca smiles at him again, the sadness seeping off her face to make the smile. “Well, since we’ve found a few people you could live with, we’re obviously going to get your opinion on it because we don’t want the children we place to be unhappy with their living arrangement. We also have to do background checks on them to make sure they’re eligible to take care of a child. But, you’ll still have to go to court and testify against your mother.” Eddie sighs, but nods.

“Okay, so what are my options on living arrangements?” Rebecca sifts around in the papers on her desk for a moment before pulling a purple folder labeled ‘Kaspbrak’ on it out of the papers. She opens it, placing it down in front of her, and turns it around to face Eddie. The first paper in it has a picture of someone that looks awfully like him on it, and a bunch of information on that man, such as age, name, where he lives, where he works, etc.

“The first is your father, Frank Kaspbrak, who was divorced from you mother eleven years ago and was not granted any sort of custody to you. He lives a few towns over, in Bangor.” Rebecca flips the page to reveal a paper with a picture of a woman with short sandy blonde hair, emerald green eyes, and freckles sprinkled across sun kissed skin. “The next, your mother’s sister, or your aunt Susan, who lives in California.” She flips the page again, revealing another woman, one who looks a lot like Eddie’s mother, with long grey hair, tired green eyes, and an angry frown on her wrinkled face. “Or your grandmother, Linda, who lives in Canada, with your grandfather.” Eddie sighs, leaning back in his chair.

He runs a hand through his messy brown curls, a frown on his face. “Jesus.” He sighs out, dropping his hand down to cross over his chest with the other. “My dad, I guess. I mean, I’ve never even seen the other two, mom stopped talking to everyone once she had me, and then she divorced my dad ‘cuz she wanted me all for herself, so I don’t remember any of these people. But if I had to chose, which I do, then I’ll choose my dad.” He states, rolling his eyes and face palming upon realizing just how much word vomit he just spilled.

“And now I’m rambling.” He mutters, looking down at his lap, which now holds his fingers that are playing with each other, running circles around each other and picking at the skin next to the fingernails until the skin bleeds and stains his fingers crimson red. “It’s okay, I get a lot of ramblers. I was a rambler too, when I was your age.” Rebecca comforts, taking the purple folder back and turning to Frank Kaspbrak’s page again. “So, your father?” Eddie nods.

The door opens, just then, to reveal the same officer that brought Eddie in here, now holding a green folder. “Here you go.” She murmurs, handing the folder to Rebecca. She smiles and takes the folder, not opening it or speaking until the officer has left. Once the door has been closed, she opens the folder, and reads the papers in there for a moment before smiling up at Eddie.

“Well, looks like you can live with him, as long as he’s okay with it. Lemme call him, just be quiet, okay?” Eddie nods as Rebecca dials a number on the phone resting on her desk, not picking up the phone though, Eddie assumes so he can hear the full conversation and not just one half.

“Hello?” The sound of his father’s voice on the phone sounds foreign, though definitely familiar. Rebecca smiles, for what seems, to Eddie, about the ten thousandth time that day. He wonders if she just smiles that much every day, and if so, if her jaw hurts from smiling so much or if she just does it so often that it’s used to it by now.

“Hi, is this Frank Kaspbrak?” There’s a pause for a moment before Frank speaks. “This is him, who is this?” 

“This is Rebecca Morris, and I have a very important question for you.” There’s a very audible breath on the other side of the line. “Okay…” Frank says, sounding very uncertain. “I have your son, and he needs somewhere to live, and he chose you. But, of course, we need your opinion before we can start the process of moving him.” There’s another pause, before a hopeful “Really?” Rebecca nods with a bit of a laugh. “Yes, really.”

After a few minutes of the two adults talking, Rebecca looks up at Eddie with a smile once Frank has hung up. “Well, we’ve got somewhere for you to stay. He says he’s moving here, so you don’t have to break away from your friends.” Eddie nods with a sigh.

And that’s how he finds himself packing his bags a weeks later and then packing boxes a few days after that, the day after his mother got sentenced to three years in jail for the abuse and neglect of him. And though he had hoped and wished it would have been more, that’s the most they could give. 

And then he’s moving into his father’s new two story home, one far nicer than the one him and his mother lived in, with three bedrooms and two bathrooms, in a nice neighborhood, right across the street from Bill’s house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so yes, I did research on how long someone can go to jail for various crimes and yes, in Maine three years is the most they can give someone for abuse and neglect of a child under 16. Also, as for the whole thing with Rebecca and shit, I have no idea how that stuff works and I just completely avoided court because I don’t know how that works either. But I tried my very best so I hope it’s close to accurate.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, real quick, i've never done any drugs or had any addictions, so i don't know what withdrawal is like or what addiction is like so i'm just running off of what i can get off of google, so it might not be super accurate. just a heads up.

_ Thursday, October 21, 1993 _

A few days after Eddie moves in with his father, he’s forced to go back to Derry High School, and, just as expected, it’s a total shitshow. Everyone is whispering about him, staring at him, which is fairly normal, but it’s worse today, because it’s about his mother, and what she did to him. Because everyone knew, knew the terrible things Eddie had tried to keep under wraps for years, but had sadly spilled out. And all because of his best and only friend. If it wasn’t for Bill being so worried, he would have been able to keep it under wraps for the remaining two years until he’s eighteen and then he could have gotten the fuck out of Derry and away from his mother, as he had wanted.

But what makes it even worse is that he was itching for pills. He was itching for that weird but amazing feeling that came with always taking those little bar shaped white pills his mother gave him, the ones that had the label ripped off so he had no idea what they were. That feeling of having not a care in the world about anything at all.

And he hadn’t gotten to have any of those pills since his house was raided and all the medications were confiscated. He’d had a headache since then, as well, and a terrible sleep schedule. He hated it.

“H-H-Hey, Eddie! How are you doing after e-e-e-everything?” Bill Denbrough, the fucker that has caused all this, says as Eddie approaches his locker that first morning back at school. And Eddie, though he doesn’t know why, goes suddenly from just slightly agitated to really fucking angry. 

“Not that great, Bill.” Eddie mumbles, just wanting Bill to leave him alone before he yells at him. Bill doesn’t seem to catch the hint, though. “O-Oh. Do y-you want to talk about i-i-i-it?” Eddie breathes out suddenly, angrily, and shouts at Bill just then. “No, just leave me the fuck alone, Bill! God, stop acting like the fucking victim! You’re the reason this happened, asshole.” Eddie shouts, causing everyone in the hall to stop whispering and just stare at the two. Bill looks like he might cry, and Eddie’s anger fizzles out like that, just from seeing the tears in his best friend’s eyes. 

“I just wanted to h-help you. I’ll l-l-leave you alone, though, if you w-w-want.” Bill mumbles before walking off, and Eddie reaches out towards him but retracts his hand at the last minute, choosing to drop it down by his side instead. Everyone is still staring at him, he realizes after a moment, causing him to shout again. “What the fuck are you guys fucking staring at? Huh?” Everyone disperses at that, eyeing him one last time before walking off.

Eddie doesn’t turn as he hears someone approach where he’s standing, shrugging it off as someone who probably just has a locker near his. Until the person leans against the locker to the right of Eddie with a clanging noise and a skinny, pale arm comes into view. Eddie looks up from the books he was organizing in his locker, to meet eyes with Richie Tozier, the infamous annoying comedian of the school, and the only open gay person in Derry. He was friends with Beverly Marsh, until she got into the Greta Bowie’s gang, and now can often be seen smoking behind the school with a disappointed looking Stanley Uris.

“What the hell do you want?” Eddie asks, once again agitated. The pounding in his head gets worse as well, just adding to the anger that seems to fester in his body today. Richie breathes out a quiet chuckle. “Is that any way to talk to your new best friend?” He asks, a bit of a smirk playing at his lips. Eddie rolls his eyes, not even looking at the trashmouth anymore and rather deciding the books he needs to organize are suddenly much more interesting. “Why the hell would you ever be my best friend? You’re the most annoying person in this town.” Eddie retorts, pointedly ignoring the hurt look that briefly flashes across Richie’s face, only to quickly be replaced with that same smug look from before.

“Ouch, little dude. But trust me, you’re going to like what I have to say.” Eddie rolls his eyes again. “Don’t call me little dude, asshole.” He murmurs, slamming his locker closed as the bell rings. “You better be good at walking and talking, though.” Richie laughs again, starting to follow Eddie through the quiet halls of the school. “Can’t say it here, but meet me on the roof at lunch.” Richie states, and then he’s walking off and turning the corner so Eddie can no longer see him.

Eddie thinks on the offer during his entire english class, and almost all the way through science as well, thinking on the different possibilities of what Richie could possibly want, until the science teacher asks him some question about physics and he has to put the thought on hold.

It stays on hold until lunchtime and by then it’s too late for him to think on it anymore, so before he knows it he’s walking towards the stairs and up to the roof. Richie is already there when he opens the door to the roof, a few of his brunette curls flying out of his face from the sudden gust of wind that flies through when he does so. 

He walks over to Richie, and only when he sits next to the taller boy does Richie throw his half smoked cigarette off the roof and look over at Eddie, one hand reaching in the pocket of the hoodie Richie is now wearing over the tacky Hawaiian shirt he was wearing earlier. 

Eddie wishes, then, that he had a jacket as well, because he’s really fucking cold with all these gusts of wind that keep blowing through, but all of his jackets are still buried in the bottom of a box sitting at the foot of his bed.

Richie pulls something out of his pocket, wordlessly, and hands it to Eddie, who takes it. It’s an orange pill bottle, like the ones he used to have in his room, above his desk on a shelf and in that fanny pack he wore in middle school and even on his nightstand. A pill bottle like the ones that littered every trashcan in the house he used to live in, a pill bottle like the ones you would have found had you looked behind the mirror above the bathroom sink or in the corner cabinet of the kitchen.

“What?” He asks, not looking at Richie, but still at the bottle. It’s a bottle with a name on it, though the name has been scribbled out with a black marker, and right above it printed **Xanax, 2 Mg.** Richie laughs again, and Eddie wonders if he can go an hour without laughing at someone or something stupid. “That’s Xanax. I’ve been watching you, I know your mom used to drug you, and I know most of those were sugar pills, except one, which was Xanax. You’ve got an addiction, and I’ve got a ton of it and a need for money. What do ya say?” Eddie looks up at Richie for a moment in disbelief before shoving the bottle back at Richie. “No.” He states, standing and starting to walk off to the door that leads back into the school. “I’m not a fucking druggie!” He yells, opening the door and stepping inside. The last thing he hears, as he walks down the stairs and the door closes, is Richie shouting “Well, you know where to find me! It’s thirty bucks, though!” And then there’s the click of the door before just the sound of Eddie’s frantic footsteps running down the stairs.


	3. Chapter 3

_Monday, October 25, 1993_

Eddie thinks about that interaction for a few days, both with growing agitation and interest in Richie’s offer. He’s sort of starting to want to take him up on it, because the shake in his hands and the lack of sleep is sort of starting to get on his nerves, and every time his dad looks at him he looks concerned. He knows Frank is probably on the verge of calling a doctor, or maybe a therapist or something, and Eddie just wants to scream, really fucking bad.

So that’s how he ends up on the rooftop at lunch, a week after Richie’s initial offer. He’s waiting for the trashmouth in question, because he knows Richie comes here every day for lunch, typically alone, although he can occasionally be seen with Beverly Marsh up here, though the two never talk when they are up here, just smoke and then Beverly leaves Richie alone with his thoughts for the rest of lunch.

Eddie wonders how Richie can do it, just sit and listen to nothing but his thoughts. Eddie supposes if he did that himself, he would end up going insane or jumping off the roof by the end of lunch, with all the thoughts screaming at him that he’s disgusting and deserves to die, that he deserved everything his mother said and did to him.

Eddie turns away from the treetops that rest near the school upon hearing the squeak of the rooftop door opening. Richie Tozier stands there, seeming to have stopped in his tracks upon seeing Eddie, but he’s got that same cocky smirk on his face as he reaches to take a cigarette out of the pack in his hand.

“Want one?” He asks Eddie after a few seconds of silence. Eddie almost wants to say yes, but decides against it, because he knows just how terrible those things are for you, just what they can do to your lungs and your teeth, and just your body in general.

“Your loss.” Richie murmurs, pulling a single cigarette out of the pack and lighting it, taking a deep inhale in of the toxic air from the cigarette before turning to Eddie. “Finally ready to take me up on that offer?” He asks, before breathing the grey smoke out of his mouth. The wind that was previously blowing through the treetops blows through, takes the smoke and blows it directly towards Eddie, who coughs at the smell of it. Richie almost looks like he feels bad, but doesn’t throw the cigarette away, so clearly he doesn’t feel bad enough.

“Yeah, I guess.” Eddie says, his hands shaking even more than they’ve been shaking without those pills. Richie pulls the same bottle out of his pocket and tosses it to Eddie, who catches it with a bit of a struggle, but catches it nonetheless. “Jesus, warn me next time.” He mutters, pocketing the pills without even glancing at the bottle. He semi trustes Richie, enough not to pop a pill right in front of him right now. 

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, not so fast there. I still need payment.” Eddie sighs, running a hand through his messy brown curls before taking out the thirty dollars he had pocketed from his father’s wallet this morning, and had prayed all the way to school that his father wouldn’t ask about it. “Here. Can I go now?” He asks as Richie takes the money and counts it before pocketing it. Richie laughs, pulling another cigarette out of the pack he keeps in his pocket to replace the one he just threw out. “Sure, but don’t tell anyone where you got that, understand?” Eddie nods before leaving the roof, going back inside the school and wincing at the sound of the pills rattling in his pocket.

He goes to his locker, where he transfers the pills from his pocket to his locker and then he goes to the cafeteria to join Bill. He makes sure to pocket one of the pills, though, and takes it when Bill isn’t looking.

💊💊💊

After school, Eddie decides to walk alone rather than with Bill, who had forgiven him after he apologized for yelling at him today. He had still looked a bit sad, but had forgiven Eddie and said he understood that Eddie was going through a lot right now, which also meant Eddie was feeling a lot of different emotions as well. And though that had made Eddie a bit mad too, he hadn’t said anything, just popped the pill that was clutched tightly in his fist when Bill looked away for a moment to talk to the new kid that had joined them at lunch two days before, Ben Hanscom.

Almost immediately after taking the pill, Eddie instantly felt better. His hands stopped shaking, and he stopped feeling nearly as angry as before. He felt normal again, for the first time in what he thinks was two weeks. It felt really fucking nice, too. 

He ignored the urge to take a second pill all through the day and just enjoyed the feeling that the first pill gave him, because he knew taking another could cause some serious problems, like, seriously hurt him.

Although, towards the end of the day, the happy bliss had started to wear off and Eddie was just really itching for a second pill. But he didn’t take another one, at least not until he got home from school. But, once he had closed the front door, he hadn’t hesitated to drop his backpack, open it, and pop another, dry. 

The sensation of the pill going down his throat dry really wasn’t that fun, but he had enjoyed the feeling the pill gave him not too long after.

And, for the first time that night, he had actually slept. And he had enjoyed it, especially when he had woken up the next morning actually feeling rested and happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly not a Halloween special but happy Halloween anyways! Remember to stay safe by wearing a mask and social distancing! :)


	4. Chapter 4

_Saturday, October 30, 1993_

It was Halloween night, just two, almost three weeks since Eddie had been through hell and back with his mother and moving in with his father, and just a few days since getting that bottle of pills from Richie. He’s already begun to feel better, and his father definitely seems to notice just how blissed out he’s been since then, though he’s shrugged it off as finally being comfortable in the new place Eddie now calls ‘home,’ and Eddie hasn’t opposed it. Bill has noticed as well, but he hasn’t said in anything. In fact, he just seems happy that Eddie hasn’t yelled at him in front of half the school again.

Eddie does feel really bad for that, though he’s apologized about a million times, and each time Bill has just laughed and waved him off with an ‘I t-told you, it’s _fine_.’ But Eddie doesn’t feel like it’s fine. He feels like he really really fucked up, and he wants to make it up to Bill. But it’s a bit difficult to do that when Bill is currently too busy staring at Beverly Marsh as she walks through the halls for Eddie to be able to ask if there’s any way he can make it up to him.

Eddie doesn’t know when Bill started having feelings for Beverly, as the stuttering boy had never told Eddie, never even mentioned thinking she was pretty. In fact, he had never mentioned thinking any girl was attractive over the years. Hell, Eddie had thought he was gay up until recently, when he out of the blue starting acting like he was in love with the red headed girl.

So that’s why, since he can’t ask Bill, he’s sitting at his desk in his new home, brainstorming ideas of how to make it up to Bill. There’s a knock at his door, not a harsh one, but despite that, one that brings him back to that day just a few weeks ago, when he was doing his algebra homework and the police showed up to take him away.

He shakes the thought out of his mind, dropping his pencil and closing his notebook before turning to face the closed door. “Come in!” He announces, not having to wait a moment before seeing an excited looking Bill Denbrough dressed in all brown with a sign taped to him with the words ‘peanut butter’ on it with an also excited, though slightly sad, looking Beverly Marsh dressed in all purple with the words ‘grape jelly’ on a sign on her own clothes hanging off his arm. Ben follows them in just a few steps after, wearing a large piece of cardboard designed to look like a piece of bread and staring directly at Beverly with the most lovesick gaze Eddie has ever seen. The whole scene brings a look of surprise onto Eddie’s face, because he hadn’t ever figured Beverly to be one to fall for Bill Denbrough, and he hadn’t expected Ben Hanscom to quite like her either. 

Though he’s not super surprised about the second thing. Beverly Marsh is beautiful, one of the top five girls in Derry High, if you were to ask Eddie. He would be attracted to her as well, if it weren’t for him being.... Being… G-

“E-E-Eddie! Where’s your costume?” Bill stutters out, bringing Eddie out of his head with a small scowl. “God, Bill, you know I hate when you stutter my name like that.” Beverly picks up on the frustration in Eddie’s voice, quickly going to cover for her… would he be her boyfriend? Eddie doesn’t know.

“I’m sure he can’t help it.” Bill shoots her a grateful smile. “Th-Thuh-Thanks, Bev. But it’s n-n-n-nuh-no big deal. He doesn’t mean anything b-by it. Just a little joke we have.” Bill explains, turning to Eddie, as if for confirmation. Eddie nods before turning to his slightly ajar closet door and opening it completely. In there, pushed to the back, against the wall and laying on the floor, is his ‘costume’ that matches Ben’s to an exact ‘T.’ The group couldn’t think of anything to dress as, so Ben suggested a sandwich and Bill happily agreed, while Eddie frowned but agreed anyway. They had known Beverly was coming, though not as Bill’s date.

“Here is my costume.” Eddie sighs out, picking up the slightly bent piece of cardboard and slipping it on, with a bit of a struggle. Beverly claps, a smile stretched across her face, as she stands and crosses the room to pick up the polaroid camera on Eddie’s desk. He’s never used it before, so as she walks back, he hopes she won’t ask how it works, as he obviously has no idea. 

“Come on, guys! We look so cute we need a picture!” She announces, her shoulder length red locks swinging a bit as she walks towards Eddie. The teens don’t need to be directed on how to stand, as they already know; just in the basic formation of a sandwich. Bev and Bill in between Ben and Eddie.

They smile, Eddie taking a bit of coaxing but finally caving and giving the most genuine smile a teenager can whilst dressed as bread, and before he knows it Beverly is clicking the button on the camera to take a picture. Once, twice, three times, four times, until there’s enough for all the teens there. And once she’s done she hands the pictures out, tells them to frame them, before Frank Kaspbrak is knocking on the door with a smile.

“Where you guys going off to tonight?” He asks, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest as he stares at the four teens standing in the bedroom in front of him. They all exchange a few glances before turning back to him and shrugging. He shrugs as well with a chuckle before standing from where he was leaning. “Alright, well, stay safe. I won’t wait up but Eddie if you’re not back in the morning I’m gonna get concerned.” Eddie smiles, saluting with a ghost of a smile on his face. “Sir yes sir.” He says, allowing the smile to form on his face, because for once when he’s talking to someone in his family, it’s a genuine smile, it’s genuine love that blooms in his chest, that makes his heart swell and makes him feel all warm inside.

“Okay, well, I’m gonna head off to bed. ‘Night.” Frank says, almost walking away because he’s not expecting anything more from the kids, until hearing a quiet “Goodnight.” From Eddie that makes his heart swell the same way Eddie’s just had. Sure, it’s not much, but he wasn’t expecting it, and it’s a lot better than the silence he had been greeted with before that.

The other teens in the room don’t seem to be affected much by the sudden burst of affection, though small, that Eddie had towards his dad. It is a normal teen-parent interaction, after all. It’s normal for teens to love their parents and tell them ‘goodnight’ or ‘I love you’ and give them hugs. Bill, though, he’s staring at Eddie as Ben and Bev bounce ideas off of each other on what to do tonight, for halloween. Eddie kind of wants to go trick or treating, but avoids saying it, for fear of Bev making fun of him.

Bev, though, surprises him by suggesting it herself. The other three of course nod with smiles stretching on their faces. Eddie and Bill almost always went trick or treating, and they didn’t know about Ben but they were sure if he didn’t anymore then he at least showed no signs of wanting to turn the offer down. Although then again, maybe he’s just happy to be spending time with Beverly.

So the teens raid the hall closet for four empty pillow cases and take off into the slightly chilly winds air of Derry for a bit, just laughing, talking, and enjoying their time together as teens. Eddie doesn’t worry about the pills sitting in the drawer of his bedside table, right there for anyone who opens it to see. Ben doesn’t worry about his mom getting a new job in Derry, as so far she’s been unsuccessful. Bill doesn’t worry about his missing and possibly dead little brother, and Bev doesn’t worry about the awful punishment she’s sure her father’s going to have for her when she gets home, late, tired, and smelling of boy’s cologne.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late Halloween post in honor of it being Halloween yesterday. I hope everyone had a great Halloween and made sure to stay safe!


	5. Chapter 5

_Friday, November 5, 1993_

By now Bev has become a consistent member of the group of friends that Eddie was starting to form. No one is sure why she ditched Greta, and they don’t really care to ask. After the first time, when she had just gotten all sad and dropped the subject, quickly changing to if she should cut her hair, because she’s getting tired of the constant heat and weight of it all, the boys decided to drop it completely, figuring if it’s important then she’ll share on her own time.

Eddie had also wanted to ask why she didn’t just go back to Richie, because they seemed really, really fucking close before Bev ditched him. Like, so close that Eddie would even say they were dating at one point, had she not quickly shut that down when asked.

She had laughed, ran a hand through her fiery locks, and shook her head, waving the question away as though it were a pesky fly with her other hand. “No, no. Nothing like that. He’s not my type, I’m not his. Besides, it would never have worked. Richie, he’s like a brother to me. I couldn’t ever imagine him being anything other than that. Not since the day we met. We’ve just always been like that. I’m sure he’s my platonic soulmate.” She had stated before taking a bite of a carrot she had stolen from Eddie.

“P-P-Platonic soulmate?” Bill had asked, drawing the attention of Ben right as Beverly was about to explain. “Some people believe that not only do we have a romantic soulmate, or one that we were meant to spend our life with, married, or just dating, whatever, but we also have a platonic one. Someone we were meant to be friends with, carry our whole life, but only as friends.” She explains, stealing another carrot from Eddie and getting a quick slap out of him for it, to which she replies with a laugh. “Some people also believe in twin flames. These are romantic, and you only find them in some lives, when your paths just happen to diverge. It’s said that way, way back, people were born sort of, as conjoined twins. Four arms, four legs, and a single head with two faces; one on each side.”

She sighs, taking a sip of the bottle of water she has sitting next to her. 

“We felt complete, always. Because we always had, as people say, ‘our other half.’ So complete that the God’s felt that it might get in the way of us wanting to worship them, so they essentially, broke us in two. Into the two people who are twin flames, so we are left in misery, longing. Always craving our other half, but not knowing who that person is, until we find them. And once you’ve found them, you know. Immediately. There’s an unsaid agreement that you are that person’s twin flame. They’ve often had similar lives, sometimes exactly the same. Because of the _twin_ part there. They mimic each other.” She sighs again once she’s finished, a small smile on her face. 

Eddie is the first to speak, rolling his eyes and shaking his head as he places the empty container that used to hold carrots back into his lunch bag. “Bull fucking shit. That’s not true.” Beverly shrugs. “Think what you want. This is just mythology. I believe it, though. I know I haven’t found my romantic soulmate, or my twin flame, but I believe in it.” She states, and that was the end of the conversation that day.

“Okay, guys, I wanna cut my hair. What do you think?” At that moment, there’s a sudden loud noise, followed by the familiar sounds of the Bowers gang, the bullies of Derry, taunting someone. 

“Stay the fuck out of our way, schizo.” Henry states, followed by someone that seems to be mimicking pity as they say “Oh, don’t be mad at her, Henry. She probably thought we were fucking hallucinations.” Eddie looks around the cafeteria as best he can, his eyes soon landing on two darker skinned people laying on the ground, food surrounding them and overturned lunch trays right out of their reach, one a girl, the other a boy. Henry currently has his foot on one of the girl’s arms.

“Still look like a fucking hallucination?! Huh?!” He asks as he shoves the foot harder on her arm, causing the girl to yell in pain. Eddie recognizes the kids on the floor. They were previously homeschooled, part of the only black family in Derry, Mike Hanlon and Violet Hanlon. The two lived on a farm farther out, on the outskirts of town, and were often bullied. Violet, for having schizophrenia, and Mike for being trans and black.

“Fucking answer me, n*gger!” Eddie visibly flinches at the word, a word his mother had often used to describe the Hanlons, though she had used a lot of colorful language in describing a lot or people, and Eddie still wasn’t quite used to it. Everyone else at the table seems to flinch as well, and Bev goes to stand, only for Bill to grab her arm and drag her back down.

“Bev, you can’t.” He states, for once not stuttering, and that’s how Eddie knows he’s serious. When he doesn’t stutter, not even once, in a sentence, that means he’s being completely serious, and not to mess with him.

“N-no. You’re not a hallucination. P-Please get off my arm, now.” The girl on the ground, Violet, breathes out shakily. Eddie does admit, the position looks painful, Henry almost looks like he’s about to break the poor girl’s arm. Mike is no longer on the ground, no being held back by one of Henry’s goons, Patrick, as he struggles to help his sister. Patrick doesn’t let up, however, only continues gripping him tightly and saying, over and over again, “Stop fucking moving, fucking tranny. Before I slit your fucking throat.” 

Bev gets up again, this time jerking her arm out of Bill’s grasp and walking off, towards Bower’s her fiery waves bouncing behind her, before anyone can pull her back again.

“Hey, Bowers.” She says, causing the tall man to turn around and face her. Before he can process she’s even standing there, she’s punching him in the nose, hard. A cracking sound echoes through the cafeteria, and Mike and Violet make a run for it out of the cafeteria, now that the gang is distracted. 

“Oh, shit.” Eddie murmurs, sighing and standing to join her as well. Because she’s a loser, like him, and losers stick together. Even if they’re sure they’re going to die. They gotta stand up for each other.

He hears Ben and Bill join him, but ignores it, only putting as much force as he possibly can into an attempt at a jab at Patrick as the man tries to block Eddie’s path. It doesn’t end up very well, only ending in Eddie getting grabbed violently and thrown on the floor.

The principal enters then, walking in the middle of the whole thing, where Beverly and Henry are throwing punches at each other, where Patrick is straddling Eddie, where Ben and Bill are standing like deer in headlights, not knowing what to do at all.

“Stop it, right now! Everyone, go back to your lunches. Bowers, Hockstetter, Kaspbrak, Denbrough, Marsh, Hanscom. Come with me, now.” The teens oblige, Eddie looking down as he does the walk of shame out of the cafeteria and to the principal’s office. Henry’s nose is now bleeding, Eddie is covered in food from where he was thrown onto the floor, and his head really fucking hurts, he’s craving a Xanax right now. Beverly is missing a chunk of hair from where Henry was just grabbing at her and managed to yank a chunk of hair out, which is still clutched in his fist. Beverly also has a nice black eye.

The principal herds the kids into his office, murmuring to the secretary to call their parents as he does. She nods grimly as he closes the door behind everyone and takes a seat in his chair. Bev is fighting with Henry over one of the other chairs as Patrick flips his lighter open and closed, watching the flame for a moment each time, as though mesmerized, before flicking it closed and making the flame go out.

“Hockstetter, put the lighter away before I take it. Marsh, Bowers, stop fighting before I take the chairs.” The teens begrudgingly listen, Beverly backing away from the chair Henry is sitting in and Patrick slipping his lighter into his pocket.

“Now, what I saw today, I never expected out of you four.” He points at Eddie, Beverly, Ben, and Bill. “The other two of you, well, I’m not so surprised. I am disappointed, though, in you four. I expected better, you are all amazing kids, I’ve never gotten anything bad out of you. And now this?” Eddie raises his shaking hand, as though he were in a classroom. Patrick laughs when he sees his, just a small chuckle, a smirk playing at his lips as he does.

The principal, Mr.Brown, sighs. “Yes, Eddie?” Eddie takes a deep breath before speaking, really itching for one of the Xanax's he keeps in his backpack, now more than ever. “Uh, well, technically, they were beating some kids up. W-we went to help them.” Mr. Brown sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he does, before looking back up at Eddie. “Quite honestly, I don’t care. Lemme just get straight to the point, and then you guys can wait for your parents to get here to pick you up.” 

Eddie waits tentatively for Mr. Brown to get to his point, to explain the punishment they’re no doubt going to get. “Bowers, Hockstetter, this is one of many offenses, so you’re expelled. Kaspbrak, Marsh, Denbrough, Hanscom, a week of detention. Now get out.” Eddie sighs, wanting to die just from hearing the punishment. A whole week of detention. How is he going to explain this to his mo-

Wait, his mom’s gone. He lives with his dad now. Okay, so not as terrible. He’s sure Frank is going to understand. Better than his mother would have, at least.

Frank is the first to arrive to pick his kid up, pulling up in his small silver car and smiling tiredly at Eddie, who now sits on the stairs in front of the school with the others. He waves goodbye to his friends, flips Henry and Patrick off, and quickly stumbles down the steps when Bowers makes a ‘I’m going to slit your throat’ gesture.

Frank is laughing a little when Eddie slips into the car, slinging his backpack and lunch bag into the backseat before buckling, with a bit of a smile on his face as well. 

Once the laughing has died down and the two are on their way home, Eddie turns to Frank, the smile no longer on his face. “Are you mad at me?” Frank looks at Eddie, a bit of surprise on his face, but smiles as he turns back to face the road. “No, you were only defending those poor kids. I don’t think you should have gotten any punishment, but I guess whatever the principal says or something. I was actually gonna take you out for ice cream, because believe it or not, you’re not lactose intolerant as your mother had told you.”

Eddie looks over at his father, this time him being the surprised one. “Ice cream? For getting in a fight? And getting detention.” Frank nods. “Yes, because you were standing up for someone. You were doing the right thing. And when someone does the right thing, they should be rewarded.” Frank states, turning down the road where the ice cream place is.

“You’re a lot different than mom.” Frank laughs a little, once again turning to face Eddie as he pulls into the parking lot of the ice cream place. “Yeah. Believe it or not, I’m actually nothing like your mother. For example; I actually care about you and your health.” He states before getting out of the car, leaving Eddie no choice but to follow.


	6. Chapter 6

_Monday, November 8, 1993_

Eddie returns to school on Monday, and for the second time in the past month people are staring at him. For once he doesn’t care, he was tired and had slept way too late that morning, meaning he was super stressed, and it didn’t help that he was already almost out of Xanax. It wasn’t that he was taking them a lot, after that first day he only took one a day, sometimes two if it was a stressful day, but it had seemed like Richie had purposefully sold him only half a bottle, maybe to make more money. Eddie isn’t sure, but he does know he needs to get more soon, despite him putting it off for as long as he possibly could and still not wanting to do it whatsoever.

But he’s been stressed, so he really, really needs some of those things.

He functions, though anxiously despite taking a Xanax before he left for school and even another one before third period in hopes of helping the anxiety, but it still doesn’t budge. He doesn’t know why, but he doesn’t really care, just knows he needs to get to the roof at lunch, get the pills from Richie as quickly as possible, and then get away. Maybe if Richie has them, he can buy two bottles, so he won’t have to go see Richie every two fucking weeks.

Once lunch comes around, Eddie basically makes a beeline from his English class to the roof, where Richie already is, as though he could sense Eddie would be there to buy more pills. And maybe he had, who knows? Bill had asked Eddie multiple times that day if he was okay, because he looked really anxious. And the hypochondriac had just waved him of with a “Yeah, I’m perfectly fine.” To which Bill always responded with a raised eyebrow before turning back to whatever he was doing before.

Richie turns when he hears the roof door creak as it always does, watching Eddie wince at the noise before stopping in his tracks upon seeing Richie staring directly at him with a smirk plastered on his face. Richie throws his cigarette out, knowing that the smaller boy hated them even if he didn’t actually have asthma as his mother had always told him, and goes over to Eddie.

“Eduardo, I figured you’d grace me with your presence today. Just once bottle?” Eddie shakes his head, almost looking like he’s shaking to Richie. “No, uhm, two. Here, I’ve got the money for it.” Eddie says, reaching into his pocket to pull out twice the amount he paid for one bottle. Richie happily takes it, counting it before slipping the bills into his pocket and pulling the two orange pill bottles from his bag. “There you go.” Eddie shakily takes the bottles, shoving them into his pocket before leaving and running the same way he had the first day he met Richie up here, when Richie had suggested the drugs in the first place.

Bill stares at him as he enters the cafeteria, lunch bag in hand. He had made a pit stop at his locker to put the bottles in his bag and quickly take another pill, hoping for the best and that he didn’t overdose in the middle of history class after this. 

“Y-Y-You’re a bit late.” Bill points out as Eddie slips into his usual seat, the one across from Bill and beside Ben. Only now, two more people have joined the table. Mike and Violet Hanlon now sit as well, with Violet beside Beverly and Mike on the other side of Bill. They smile and wave at Eddie, who waves back before shrugging in response to Bill’s statement. “Bathroom break.” Is all he says before taking a bite into the peanut butter and jelly sandwich that Frank had been insisting he try for days now and he had finally caved this morning to make. He had never had one, always thought he was allergic to peanuts so he never could have one. But Frank had insisted he wasn’t allergic to anything, unless it had developed after Sonia and him had divorced, which isn’t very likely.

And Eddie had taken the chances because, well, fuck it. You only live once, or something. 

“You n-never use the school bathrooms. You always th-th-thuh-thought they were disgusting.” Eddie shrugs again, taking a bite out of the sandwich. He does think it’s pretty good, and so far his throat doesn’t feel like it’s closing up, so he thinks it’s okay.

“People change. Hell, I thought I was allergic to peanuts until literally right now because I’m eating a fucking peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I’m branching out, my mom isn’t here to hold me back anymore.” Bill sighs, seeming to take that as an answer before turning to Beverly and catching sight of Violet, who’s just kind of staring into space. She’s got her lunch tray in front of her, barely touched, but she doesn’t seem to be showing any interest in eating it.

“This is Mike and V-Violet, the kids we helped yesterday. I told them they c-c-c-cuh-could sit with us, if it’s okay.” Eddie nods, looking at the two. Mike, yet again, waves at him, and Violet, finally seeming to snap out of whatever is going on in her head, is turning to her lunch silently.

“Yeah, I know who they are. It’s, uh, it’s nice to meet you two.” He says, totally sounding fake, though he doesn’t mean to. He’s never really been good at formally greeting people. When someone usually joins the group, like Bev or Ben, they immediately just go into acting close, like best friends. Eddie’s never really had to greet someone, or introduce himself. They just pick up each other’s names when someone else mentions it.

“Nice to meet you too, Eddie.” The two say at the same time, before the group begins to go into their usual conversations, stupid conversations. Eddie doesn’t fail to notice how Beverly can’t seem to take her eyes off of Violet, though.

💊💊💊

Once classes are over, Eddie sighs as he makes his way to his locker. He wishes he could just go home, but he can’t, because he’s still got that week’s worth of detention to make up. But at least he’ll be with his friends, minus Mike and Violet.

He makes his way to the detention room, where Mrs. Black is sitting at her desk and all the seats are empty. She looks up when he enters, scowls, and looks back down at her paperwork. Eddie doesn’t take it personally, she seems to hate her job, always scowling at everyone, no matter how good their grades are or how well behaved they are. Eddie thinks she just kind of hates everyone, maybe she’s projecting the hate for her job or maybe even her self hate on everyone else.

Eddie sits in the very back of the class, in a window seat, dropping his backpack under the desk, next to his pristine white Converse, and waits for the others to enter. He pulls out his homework, deciding to do that for his time in detention, and waits.

He looks up when he hears someone else enter just moments later, thinking it’s probably one of his friends, but sighing and sliding down in his chair upon seeing the person he only ever sees every two weeks during lunch, Richie Tozier. He’s got that same fucking cocky smile on his face as always, the one that Eddie always wants to just slap right off his face.

Richie sits next to Eddie, flinging his backpack down next to his feet, which are stretched out and almost under the desk in front of him, because his legs are just _that long_. Eddie wonders if it ever gets uncomfortable to have such gangly, long limbs.

“Heya, Eduardo. Didn’t plan to see you again so soon.” A hush comes from the teacher at the front of the classroom, but Richie disregards it. “Whatcha in for?” Eddie rolls his eyes at the stupid nickname Richie gives him. “Got in a fight defending someone. Also, don’t fucking call me ‘Eduardo.’” Richie laughs, a loud laugh. “Lame. I’m here ‘cuz I got caught smoking. And so did… Staniel!” Richie shouts upon seeing the always unamused looking Jew enter. He just flips Richie off for using the nickname, almost contemplating sitting far, far away from Richie, before sighing and sitting directly in front of the ravenette.

The teacher shushes the boys again, to no avail. “God, I hate that name.” Stan mutters, copying Eddie and pulling his homework out of his bag as well, placing it neatly on his desk with his pencil next to it. “You love me though!” Richie announces, earning an eye roll from the curly headed boy in front of him. “No, I don’t. I hate you more every day and merely tolerate you.” Stan deadpans, voice monotones. Eddie can’t help but notice the way Stan’s fingers tap the desk in intervals of four, in sync with his foot under the desk.

Bill, Beverly, and Ben soon join the three boys, with Beverly next to Richie, Bill in front of her, and Ben in front of Eddie. Once Mrs. Black has taken roll call for the small group, she closes the door and forces the group into silence.

It only lasts for about twenty minutes of the hour the kids are supposed to be there before the teacher announces she needs to go print some things, and to shut up and do what they’re supposed to do before appointing Ben in charge and leaving the room, shutting the door behind her.

As soon as the kids can’t hear her heels clicking on the floor anymore, Richie’s speaking. “So, Eduardo-” He’s cut off by Eddie, who rolls his eyes before speaking. “I hate that name.” Richie laughs. “Okay, so what about Eddie Spaghetti?”

“No.”

“Eds Spagheds?” 

“God, no.”

“Eduardo Spagheduardo.”

“What the fuck?”

“Eds.”

Eddie doesn’t even dignify the name with a response, only rolling his eyes before turning to face his homework yet again. “Eds it is.” Eddie rolls his eyes again. “You roll your eyes a lot. Think they’d get stuck?” Eddie sighs and shakes his head. “I’m not dignifying that with a response.” Richie whines, a sound that Eddie really shouldn’t have let hit him directly in the stomach and almost go to his-

“But why?” Richie whines again. Eddie ignores him again, until he hears the lanky boy beside him sigh and shut up. 

“Guys, shut up, please. I actually wanna get my work done.” Stan mutters, his pencil scratching out an answer for some question right after he speaks. Richie sighs again, but obliges, and the group sits in silence yet again until detention is over.

Eddie goes home later that day, a thought itching at the back of his mind. Because the boys, his friends, they were always staring at Beverly. Eddie can’t blame them, she’s beautiful. But he doesn’t stare at her like they do, doesn’t get the lovesick feelings they must get when staring at her. He’s never stared at any girl that way, and with the way Richie whining at him during detention hit him, he’s begun to wonder if maybe he’s gay.

He hates the thought. It leaves a bitter taste in his mouth even though he didn’t even say it, he only thought it. But it makes him want to bash his head into a wall until the thought gets shaken away or maybe, hopefully, just dissolves, disappears. That wouldn’t work, though, Eddie knows that, rationally. He knows you can’t just reprogram your sexuality.

Unless maybe you can?

He pushes all thoughts away, except the thought of being gay. And it kind of clicks, actually. The way that when he was little he had wanted to kiss Bill, marry him, even. And when he mentioned it to his mother that day, after Bill left from a play date, and she had screamed at Eddie, told him that he’s not a faggot, no, her little boy can’t be a faggot. And he was forbidden to hang out with Bill for months after that, and he had cried to her every day, asking to please hang out with Bill, and she had told him that he was sick and he could hang out with Bill when he was better. So he pretended to be better, like the girls at school, come home talking about how he wanted to hold hands with Stacy from his class or Beth from the playground, the few times Sonia had allowed him to go to the playground.

Eddie enters his house, just kind of wanting to cry or scream. Because he’s a filthy faggot, always has been, and there’s nothing he can do about it. He allows himself to cry, for a few minutes, when he gets to his room, before pushing it all away and convincing himself he likes Beverly. She’s pretty, her red hair always glittering in the sunlight and her ocean blue eyes always holding life and happiness and excitement, thought sometimes there’s a glint of something else, something mysterious, something _bad_. But Eddie doesn’t think of that. He thinks of how pretty she is, and tries to convince himself he would like her.


	7. Chapter 7

_ Thursday, November 25, 1993 _

Eddie’s birthday comes and goes, and then before he knows it, it’s Thanksgiving, which means, the Losers, as they’ve come to call themselves, his friends, are going to be coming over to have the Thanksgiving dinner Frank is making. It also means waking up at ten thirty in the morning, mentally berating himself for waking up so late before making his way downstairs, with bedhead and clad in an old hoodie and some sweatpants, his bare feet sending shivers through his body as they touch the cold floor with each step. The smell of the food Frank is making, mostly the turkey, if it’s this early in the morning, greets Eddie as he walks downstairs as well.

“Morning, dad.” God, it’s been over a month and he still isn’t used to it. This whole, having a loving, caring parent, having a dad. “Morning, Eddie. I’m making breakfast.” Eddie smiles, though Frank is turned to face the stove and can’t see it. “Thanks.” He says, sitting down at the dining table, the one with only four chairs. They don’t have a bigger dining table, so the Losers are going to have to sit in the living room. But Eddie doesn’t mind. As long as he gets to hang out with his friends and his dad, then he’s okay with it. 

“So, have any girls you’re interested in? A girlfriend or something, maybe?” Frank asks as the two eat the omelettes he made for them. Eddie chokes on the orange juice he was drinking. He wasn’t quite ready for the question, though he should be. But Sonia never asked about this stuff, she was always ranting about her precious Eddie bear, and how he couldn’t have some bad, dirty girl take him away from her.

Eddie places his glass of orange juice down awkwardly. Frank looks just as awkward, with the way he’s just kind of staring down at his plate, his half eaten omelette in front of him. “Uh, did I cross a line?” Eddie shakes his head, clearing his throat as he does. “No, just, uh, I wasn’t really prepared for that. Uhm… No. I don’t have any girls I’m interested in. Or-Or a girlfriend. Uhm...” Eddie thinks for a second. Should he tell his father he might be gay? He’s not sure how well it would turn out. But Frank had said he was a lot different from Sonia, so maybe he would take it well, accept Eddie, support him, let him date boys and go to pride festivals in the summer, have a rainbow flag and everything. 

But what if he doesn’t accept Eddie? What if he hits him, kicks him out, calls him a dirty faggot or a fairy and tells him to never come back here again?

Frank seems to sense Eddie’s hesitance to say something, though he obviously can’t tell what. “You don’t, uh, have to share everything with me, right now. But I’ll always love you, and support you. But if you’ve killed someone, I can’t help you there.” Frank says, trying to ease the tension. Eddie laughs, a genuine laugh, and thinks for a minute. Frank said he would support him, so maybe he should say it.

He takes a deep breath, and decides against saying it, at least until he’s sure he’s gay. Because he’s not even fully sure. Eddie thinks it would help if he kissed someone. He’s never done it before, and the thought of the germs really, really scares him, but he needs to know. He can ask Bev, later. He’s sure she’ll be okay with helping him with his weird predicament. 

💊💊💊

The Losers come over at varying times. Beverly is the first, at four fifteen, which Eddie doesn’t complain about. Because that means he can ask her for help with the gay thing without the others being there, without having to worry about getting her somewhere where the others won’t see, or hear.

“Dad, Bev’s here! We’ll be in my room!” He announces, as he opens the door when she gets there. She’s bundled up, for good reason. It’s really fucking cold, even supposed to snow tomorrow. “Okay, just use protection!” Frank shouts, and Eddie laughs fakely, trying to make it seem as genuine as possible when really, the thought really, really fucking disgusts him.

They go to his room once Bev’s out of her coat, boots, and hat, all left by the front door. She immediately makes herself at home, flopping down on the bed. It bounces a little under her, and he hair haloes out around her, the long fiery locks framing her face perfectly. 

Eddie wishes he thought it were attractive.

He closes the door as she leans up on her elbows to watch as he takes an awkward seat next to her. She elbows him in the ribs, to which he grimaces and she laughs.

“God, ‘Eds’ lighten up. You’re really fucking tense. What? Never been alone in a room with a girl?” Eddie laughs a little, but rolls his eyes at the nickname she had obviously stolen from Richie.

“I’m fine. Just a lot going on in my head right now.” He doesn’t hesitate to beat around the bush with it, because though they’ve only known each other for about a month, they’re really close. 

Her smile drops when he says that. “Oh. Wanna talk about it?” Eddie shakes his head with a tense smile on his face. “Nah, not really much to talk about.” Beverly rolls her eyes and elbows him in the ribs again. “Come on, Kaspbrak. Talk to me.” He sighs, turning to face her. “Fine, okay. You’re not gonna hate me, right?” She shakes her head. “Not unless you’ve killed Bill. Then I’m gonna have a bone to pick with you.” Eddie laughs a little, shaking his head. “No, I haven’t killed anyone.”

There’s a second of silence as Eddie thinks of how to word what he wants to say. “I think I might be… gay? I figured you could help? I don’t know.” Beverly seems to understand as she nods. “I can help, if you want. What were you thinking? Kissing or something?” Eddie nods. “Yeah, I figured we could kiss? Just to try it out. I just need to know.” Beverly nods again, standing before sliding herself onto Eddie’s lap. He wasn’t quite expecting that, but he places his hands on her hips awkwardly regardless as she moves her face closer to his.

“Don’t panic, okay?” She says, to which Eddie nods. She smiles down at him, to reassure him, before her face is coming even closer to his, her nose grazing his. Her hair acts almost like a curtain to the outside world, which definitely helps.

Before he knows it, her lips are on his. It starts gentle, their lips just barely touching, until Beverly moves her head closer, and their lips are actually touching, the two are actually kissing. Her lips are soft, and it’s a nice, gentle kiss. But Eddie doesn’t really like it. The kiss doesn’t last long before Eddie’s pulling away. She smiles at him again, that familiar, mysterious, sad glint in her eyes as she does. “Well? What’s the verdict?” Eddie shrugs. “I-I don’t know? I mean, I didn’t necessarily hate it but I didn’t love it either.” Beverly sighs before grabbing one of his hands from her waist and placing it directly at her boob. And Eddie knows he hates that, hates the squishy ball of fat she’s forcing him to grab.

“What about that?” Eddie shrugs again, though he knows he hates it. She goes in for another kiss, and the door opens then. The two shoot away from each other, almost as fast as they really can, with Beverly almost falling off of Eddie in her scramble away from him. Luckily it’s not Eddie’s father at the door, but rather Richie. Because Richie had actually been getting closer to Beverly again, and had started to hang out with the Losers as well, with Stan soon joining him.

“Uh, did I, uhm, interrupt something?” He asks, standing in the door awkwardly. Eddie frantically shakes his head, though he knows how that must have looked. “No. You’re fine. You can come in.” And he means it. Richie hadn’t interrupted anything. Eddie hadn’t felt anything, with Beverly on top of him, her lips on his. Nothing at all. No butterflies in his stomach, sweaty palms, his heart beating heavily in his chest, nothing.

He leans over to whisper in her ear as Richie enters the room. “So, I’m gay.” Beverly laughs, turning to whisper in his ear to respond. “I could tell.” Eddie laughs a little at that, but there’s a sense of anxiety that seems to creep up at the sudden revelation. Sure, he had kind of known about being gay for years, but he had continued to shove the feeling away, saying that he just hadn’t found the right girl or something. But now there’s no avoiding it, not when he was just basically making out with one, his hand on her  _ boob _ , and he felt nothing at all.

The atmosphere now, with Richie here, is tense. Richie isn’t even looking at the two other teens in front of him, rather just spinning himself around slightly in Eddie’s desk chair while looking down at his fingers. “Uh, sorry you had to walk in on  _ that _ .” Eddie says to Richie, trying to ease the tension. Richie looks up, adjusting his glasses as he responds to Eddie. “It’s, uh, okay, I guess? Kinda awkward. I thought Beverly had the hots for Bill, never expected you two to be together.” Eddie and Beverly exchange a glance before looking back at Richie. “No, we’re not, like, together? We were just… uh… messing around?” Eddie says it like a question, because he doesn’t really know what else to say. Richie just kind of stares for a second.

“We don’t have feelings for each other. Just… messing around. Like Eddie said.” Beverly says, pushing some of her hair out of her face and behind her ear. “I… totally like Bill.” Eddie shoots Beverly a skeptical glance, because that sounded really fucking fake, but she’s staring at the ajar door rather than at either of the two boys. Richie seems to buy the statement though, shrugging and turning to face Eddie’s bare desk. Well, mostly bare, save for a single notebook and a few miscellaneous pencils.

The kids sit in silence for a moment, until Richie says something dumb, as always, and sparks up a conversation between them while they wait for the others to arrive.


	8. Chapter 8

_ Friday, December 17, 1993 _

It was the last day of school until winter break, meaning it was Eddie’s last chance to smuggle another bottle or two of Xanax from Richie before winter break, because the two wouldn’t be seeing each other again until New Years. 

They meet at the roof as always, Eddie paying Richie the same amount as he always does and Richie shoving it in his pocket without counting it. Eddie shoves his bottles into his pocket as well before bidding Richie adieu and walking off, the two silently agreeing to go to the cafeteria just a few minutes apart, so no one expects anything. 

That works out, anyway, because Eddie always has to put the bottles in his locker before going to see the others. 

Once he’s done that he goes to the lunchroom to join everyone else. Bill’s staring at him skeptically, as he always does on the days Eddie enters late. But he doesn’t say anything. Eddie can tell he’s just trying to figure out what’s going on with his best friend.

“Hey, guys.” Eddie says, taking his seat in the place he always does, in between Ben and Richie. Stan now sits next to Richie, with Beverly across from the ravenette, Bill next to her, and Mike and Violet next to Bill. 

Everyone greets him as they always do before going off to their own conversations again. Stanley is now staring at Eddie, just like Bill was just doing. But he doesn’t have a questioning look on his face as Bill always has, rather he has a knowing look on his face. Like he knows exactly what’s going on with Eddie, in his mind, what he was just doing on the roof with Richie.

He doesn’t say anything, though, which Eddie is grateful for. Because even if he doesn’t know about the drugs, he definitely knows something. And Eddie isn’t ready for the rest of the Losers to know anything Stanley could possibly know.

“Okay, Christmas plans. Who’s place are we hanging out at?” Violet asks, breaking everyone from either their conversations or from their silence as they eat. The Losers all shrug, because they have no idea. Before this year, when it was just Eddie and Bill, the first half was spent at their own house and then the second half would always be spent at Bill’s house, because any chance Eddie could get to be away from his mother he would take.

But now they’ve got six new people to hang out with. “We could rock paper scissors it or something? I don’t know.” Ben suggests with a shrug. “Uh, okay, but not my place. My dad won’t be cool with a ton of boys coming over.” Beverly states. Everyone nods, and once they’ve silently agreed that no one else is going to come forward saying they can’t hang out at their place, they begin doing the rock, paper, scissors against each other, starting with Eddie against Richie.

Finally they narrow it down to Bill versus Mike, the other five watching as the two boys play. “Rock, paper, scissors…. Shoot!” They all say at once, and the two boys reveal their hands. Bill’s done paper, and Mike rock. So Bill wins. 

“Alright, Christmas at Bill’s then. Sounds good to me.” 

The Losers all agree that works, before going back to their lunches.

💊💊💊

Eddie sighs when he exits the doors of the school to see it’s snowing. Fucking snowing. It hadn’t been snowing earlier that day, not even when he had gone up to the roof at the beginning of lunch. But regardless of the fact that it had just begun snowing and there was very little on the ground, he still didn’t want to walk through the snow, get his socks wet because he hadn’t worn shoes that were better for wearing when it was snowing, he was wearing the slightly dirty white converse he always wore. Sure, other than the shoes he was fine, with a pair of gloves, a long sleeve shirt, a hoodie, a coat, and a beanie, but the shoes were the issue. He didn’t want to get his socks soaked.

He walks down the stairs from the doors of the school, beginning to turn on the sidewalk to take his usual route home when a car pulls up in front of him. A familiar face sits in the driver’s seat, a friendly smile on his face with the constantly there undertones of that cocky smirk that Eddie always kind of just wants to smack off his face.

“Need a ride, Eds?” Richie asks once he’s rolled the window down. Eddie wants to say no, but then he gets a glance of the snow piling up on the sidewalk ahead of him and decides to give in and nod. “Sure. But don’t call me Eds!” Richie laughs a little. “Then get in. Passenger seat’s taken so you’ll have to sit in the back.” Eddie rolls his eyes but obliges, opening the door and sliding into the messy backseat next to Stan. There’s a shit ton of empty, crumpled cigarette boxes mixed with fast food wrappers and empty Redbull cans, all piled in the back of the car.

Eddie even thinks he sees some girl’s clothes, but he just pushes them away with his cold foot and doesn’t mention them.

He takes his backpack off, placing it next to Stan’s in the middle seat of the backseat before buckling up. Once he’s buckled, the car begins to move.

In the passenger seat sits someone Eddie’s only ever seen once, and he had spent a shit ton of time trying to erase the memory from his brain. It’s Patty Walker, the girl everyone tried to steer clear of. She had used to be part of Bowers’ gang, though now she’s just the basket case of the school that everyone’s afraid of because they think she’s going to shoot up the school. Eddie tries not to let rumors get to him, but even he’s afraid of her, after the one time he saw her being her sitting in the boys’ bathroom, a knife in her hand as she carved something into her leg. Eddie had left immediately and never went close to her again.

The car is in silence except for the music on the radio, songs Eddie’s never heard before. He doesn’t hate them, but he also doesn’t love them. They’re more on the rock side, while Eddie prefers more downbeat, pop music.

He doesn’t complain about it, though, because Richie did save him from the snow. 

Richie drops the other in the car off, allowing Eddie enough time to switch to the passenger seat once Patty’s gone before he’s driving off to the address Eddie gave him to his house.

“I never knew you and Patty were friends.” Eddie says, just to kind of break the silence. It wasn’t an awkward silence, but whether or not it was awkward never really mattered to Eddie. He had never liked silence, never liked being alone with his thoughts being the only thing to keep him company. That’s also why he liked the Xanax. It kind of numbed his thoughts, mulled them out until they were just muffled whispers that he could barely hear.

But he hadn’t had a chance to take a Xanax before school was over, and the other one was wearing off, so the muffled whispers were becoming just whispers, and soon they would again become shouts of how much of a dirty faggot he is, how much of a disappointment he is, that no one loves him.

So he just wants to break the silence in the car to distract himself from the whispers.

Richie looks over at him for a second, then back at the road. “There’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Eddie.” Eddie kind of flinches at the sound of his full name. Richie only ever uses it when he’s being serious. Eddie hates when Richie’s serious, when his full name comes out of the trashmouth’s mouth. Because as much as he pretends to hate the nicknames, he actually likes them. A lot.   


“Yeah, I know. But we’re friends. So I’ll start to learn more about you, right?” Richie shrugs, not looking at Eddie. There’s something in his face that the brunette can’t identify, no matter how hard he tries, no matter how badly he wants to.

“Maybe. Depends.” Richie states, and then that’s the end of the conversation. They’re back to silence, a bit of tension now in the car. Eddie doesn’t try to break the silence again.


	9. Chapter 9

_Saturday, December 25, 1993_

Eddie wakes up to almost the exact same smell of cooking food he had on Thanksgiving, only now accompanied by a much colder bedroom and Christmas music playing downstairs. He smiles as he lays in bed for a moment, not quite ready to get up and face the cold bedroom outside of the covers on his bed. For once, though, he’s happy on Christmas. Genuinely happy. And he knows he’s going to get some good ass presents, or at least presents better than the health books and fanny packs his mother always got him.

He stands after a few minutes of laying underneath the warm covers of the bed, shivering at the cold that instantly hits his arms and his feet, because last night it was too hot to sleep in long sleeves and he never sleeps in socks, always kicks them off in the night and then when he wakes up in the morning he just gets pissed off because he has to search for them in the bed. So he’s learned that despite his feet being cold, it’s better just to sleep sockless.

He pads over to his closet, the floor creaking a little as he does, takes the first hoodie he sees, a pale blue one, and slips it over his head. He then walks over to his dresser and takes out a pair of socks, putting them on quickly before going downstairs to join his father.

Frank turns upon hearing the creak of the floorboards under Eddie’s weight when the boy walks through the doorway of the kitchen. Eddie smiles tiredly at his father, mumbling a quiet “Good morning” as he walks to his chair. Frank greets him as well before turning back to the counter, where he’s making God knows what. Eddie had told him he wouldn’t be here for dinner, because he would be going to Bill’s house, and Frank had nodded but said he was still going to go all out for a Christmas dinner as he always did, and Eddie could just have it for lunch if he wanted or eat the leftovers tomorrow or something. Eddie had agreed, because Frank’s good at cooking and it would just be rude not to accept the offer of eating the dinner he had worked so hard to cook.

Eddie’s breakfast is already at the table, nothing more than just a bagel. But Eddie accepts it without complaint. He already feels bad enough because Frank always makes breakfast for him and packs his lunches every day, even though Eddie has told him multiple times that he doesn’t need to, he’s fine making his own food. Hell, he’s used to making his own food, Sonia never made him anything except dinner and even that was a hit or miss most days. But Frank always has everything done for Eddie, always has breakfast made before Eddie’s even awake, always has Eddie’s lunch packed before he’s even downstairs. It’s the least Eddie can do not to complain about what he gets.

He wouldn’t complain even if Frank wasn’t nice enough to make it and Eddie had to make himself the bagel. He usually likes what’s been cooked, and if he doesn’t Frank accepts the complaint and doesn’t make it again. On those days Eddie usually makes a bowl of cereal if it’s breakfast or a sandwich if it’s dinner. It’s usually never lunch that he doesn’t like, because Frank almost always packs exactly the same thing, maybe with a different snack occasionally but there’s really no reason for Eddie to complain about a snack, he just doesn’t eat it.

“So, you’re going to Bill’s after what, lunch?” Frank asks once he’s gotten done making something Eddie can now identify as deviled eggs. He’s now turned to face his son so they can actually have a face to face conversation. Eddie’s learned Frank prefers those kinds of conversations.

Eddie nods, wiping some cream cheese off his face as he does. “Yeah, with the others.” Frank nods, but he looks a little lost. “Uh, remind me who that is again?” Eddie laughs a little. “Richie, Ben, Beverly, Violet, Mike, Stan, and obviously Bill.” Frank nods, but he still looks a little lost. “Gosh, that’s a lot of friends. How do you keep track?” Eddie shrugs, putting his half eaten bagel down on the table before standing and walking towards the fridge to get something to drink. “Dunno, I just do.” He states, entirely truthful, because he really doesn’t know.

“Mike… that name sounds familiar. Is it Mike Hanlon, by any chance?” Eddie nods, pulling the carton of orange juice out of the fridge. Frank makes grabby hands for the carton, but Eddie pulls it away and reassures his father that he really can pour himself a glass of orange juice.

“Yeah, that’s him. Why?” Frank sighs. “Uh, no particular reason.” Eddie stares at his dad for a moment skeptically. “Is it because he’s trans? Or according to rumors he is, at least.” Frank’s eyes widen as he shakes his head. “No, no, no. Not that at all. I was just wondering.” Eddie squints at his father as he places the orange juice back in the fridge.

“It’s because he’s trans, isn’t it? Or is it because he’s black?” Frank shakes his head again. “No, it’s not either. I just… It kind of surprised me that you’re so okay with being his friend because of your mom. I know she wasn’t really cool with black people or people who are… uh, what is it again? L, G…. What?” Eddie sighs, taking a sip of his orange juice before sitting back down. “LGBT.” Frank snaps before pointing at Eddie, who is picking his bagel up again. “That’s it!” He shouts.

“Yeah, well, just like you’re different from Sonia, so am I. I’m okay with people not being white, cisgender, and straight.” Eddie states before taking a bite from the bagel. Frank’s staring at him, he becomes acutely aware, after there’s quite a few minutes of silence. “Are you…” Frank trails off. Eddie almost contemplates telling him, but again there’s that doubt in his mind. What if Frank isn’t accepting? What if he kicks Eddie out?

Eddie shakes his head. “It’s okay if you are. I don’t care. I’ll always love you, I’ve told you that. And I’ll support you.” Eddie sighs, standing now that he’s finished his bagel. “I’m not. I… I like girls.” Eddie states, but he’s really just trying to convince himself of that. Even though he kissed Beverly and he hated every second of it, wanted to puke through the whole thing. But he thinks, he _hopes_ she’s just not that good of a kisser, or he hated it because he kind of sees her like a sister. He knows that’s not true, but he’s not ready to face that fact.

“Okay, well, uh, ready to unwrap gifts?"

💊💊💊

Eddie shivers as he walks up the stairs to the Denbrough’s front porch. He looks over at the living room window, the one that faces the front porch. Georgie always used to stand there and peek through the curtains, trying to be sneaky but failing. He would always have a playful smile on his face as he did. And Eddie would always smile and wave back.

The door opens, causing Eddie to abruptly turn to face it. Mrs. Denbrough stands there, looking tired. She looks so different from usual, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants with her auburn hair in a messy bun when usually she would be wearing a nice dress, her hair curled and falling down to about shoulder length. But Eddie doesn’t blame her. Her youngest son went missing three months ago, the search has been called off, but there’s still no body. Not yet. She refuses to have a funeral until they find a body, too. There’s no closure either, no leads on what could have happened to him.

Eddie knows it’s taken a toll on Bill, too. Hell, Bill’s being blamed for it by his own parents, because he sent Georgie outside when it was raining all by himself, all because he didn’t want to play with Georgie that day. He’s being eaten up by guilt, Eddie can tell, but there’s nothing he can do to help. He had volunteered in the searches at the beginning, until there weren’t anymore searches being sent out for Georgie Denbrough. He even went out with Bill to search by themselves after the searches were over, but they found nothing. Eddie thinks he’s done just about everything he can do.

“Hi, Mrs. Denbrough.” He greets with a small smile, just to try to get her spirits up. She doesn’t seem amused with the attempt, however, and just moves out of the way to let Eddie into the house without a word. He clears his throat awkwardly and enters. “Basement.” Is all Bill’s mother mutters before she walks off to the living room without another room. Eddie sighs before walking off in the direction of the basement to join Bill and the others.

The teens are sitting in various places in the basement, some standing, but most of them sitting, with Bill, Ben, and Bev sitting on the couch, Stan on the recliner chair, Violet on the floor, leaning against Bev’s legs, Richie in a beanbag in the corner of the room, and Mike leaning against a wall, having a staring contest with the tall ravenette in the beanbag. Another person stands in the corner of the room, looking extremely out of place. It’s not just any person, though, it’s Patty Walker.

She’s wearing her usual, a random band shirt, littered with holes, a pair of ripped jeans, fishnets under the jeans and a striped shirt under the band shirt. She leaves everything to the imagination, but Eddie doesn’t mind. After that one day, in the bathroom, and all that blood, he would hate to see the aftermath of whatever she was doing. It was already bad enough to see Stan’s scars from when he tried to slit his wrists last year.

And it’s not that the scars really trigger Eddie, there’s no reason to. He just doesn’t like seeing them, because seeing them sends him into a spiral of what could have caused them and all that blood. The blood, that’s what gets him. God, he hates blood. Always has, and probably always will. It’s just the infections that it could hold that mainly gets to him, but regardless of that, even, he still just hates blood, even his own.

“Hey, guys.” He calls out to the group once he’s able to pry his eyes away from Patty, and that’s only when she looks up at him with a death glare until he looks away. The rest of the group faces him, except Mike and Richie, who are still _very_ into their staring contest, but they still wave at him and greet him anyway. 

“H-H-Hey, Eddie.” Bill greets, scooting closer to Beverly to make room on the cramped looking couch for Eddie. “Come s-s-s-s-sit.” Eddie shakes his head with a smile after eyeing the cramped place between Bill and the arm of the couch. “I think I’ll sit on the floor or something, that looks really cramped.” Beverly nods, pushing Bill away from her so he’s taking up the spot he had just made for Eddie. “Trust me, coming from someone who’s been stuck between these two for the past twenty minutes, it’s _very_ cramped. And that’s not a bash on you, Ben.” She says, patting Ben on the shoulder to help reassure she wasn’t coming for Ben being a bit chubby. 

Ben blushes noticeably at the touch, but just shrugs. “I know. You’re not like, rude about my weight, ever. Why would you be now?” A sudden cheer from the other side of the room causes Eddie’s attention to move over to where Richie’s now standing in the middle of the room and doing some sort of celebratory dance on the old coffee table that the Denbrough’s were going to get rid of last year until Bill suddenly decided to make the basement into a sort of hangout area.

“Hell yeah, Mikey! I fucking won! In your face!” Richie shouts, still dancing as he playfully flips Mike off. Mike rolls his eyes and returns the gesture with his own middle finger before turning to talk to Stan about the bird book he had brought and was now reading. Eddie doesn’t really know how Stan could read in the chaotic environment they’re in right now, but he applauds him for being able to nonetheless.

“I won, I won, I won. Toldja, Mike!” Richie chants as he continues to dance. Eddie rolls his eyes, but he can’t help the fond smile that grows on his face. Richie turns to him then, and reaches a hand out. “Come on, dance with me, Eds. To celebrate.” Eddie sighs, almost wanting to say no but rolling his eyes before nodding. He goes over to the radio in the corner of the room and turns it on quickly, to help set the mood for dancing, because they’d just look like idiots dancing without music, before taking Richie’s hand and joining him on the table.

“Be careful, guys! Wouldn’t want you to fall, we really can’t afford a hospital bill.” Bev shouts at the two with a laugh. Eddie flips her off. “We’re fine, Marsh. No hospital visits here.” Richie states, bringing Eddie into a slow dance even though the song playing on the radio isn’t even a slow song, not even close. But Eddie rolls his eyes and allows the lanky boy to do it, not even trying to fight the butterflies that flutter in his stomach that he hates. He hates them, hates that they’re caused by being this close to a boy, to Richie Trashmouth Tozier of all boys. But he doesn’t try to fight them off, because this feels right. Everything about it. The music on the radio, Richie’s hands in his, Richie’s body up against Eddie’s, their friends surrounding them and cheering them on, chanting “Kiss, kiss, kiss!” And Eddie wants to, he really does. He wants to say ‘fuck it’ and lean forward and kiss the boy in front of him, but he doesn’t. He can’t, Richie would hate him. His friends with hate him, his dad would hate him. The whole town would hate him. Everyone would hate him.

So instead, he continues to dance until he gets tired and his lungs burn, only then breaking away to go upstairs to get water while laughing breathlessly, his cheeks hurting from smiling so much in the past half hour.


	10. Chapter 10

_ Saturday, December 25, 1993 _

The kids stay downstairs, laughing and smiling and being dumb teens until Mrs. Denbrough calls them up for the nice Christmas dinner she made for everyone. They sit in the basement and eat after getting their plates and thanking her for the food, because there isn’t enough chairs in the dining room for everyone.

Patty still stands in the corner of the room, looking extremely uncomfortable and out of place. Eddie wants to approach her, but fears the worst. What if she hurts him? She  _ did  _ used to be part of Bowers’ gang, and if she hurts herself, what holds her back from hurting other people.

Richie goes over and talks to her a few times, and judging from the hand gestures, he looks like he’s trying to coax her over to join the rest of the group, but she always shakes her head. And then Richie walks away looking forlorn, but a smile always takes over his face the second he goes back to join the rest of his friends.

Eddie eventually shoves the fear down with another Xanax that he pops when he sneaks off to the bathroom, and decides to approach her right as the group is about to watch some cheesy Christmas movie, because they had all offered for her to join and watch, but she had shaken her head. Eddie wonders if she even talks, because he’s never seen her talk, and she’s only shaken her head, nodded, or glared the whole night.

He’s surprised to see her, Beverly, and Richie gone when he walks back into the main gathering room of the basement again. He almost thinks they ditched everyone else, decided to go home, when Stan walks over to him, almost as though he can sense Eddie was looking for the three.

“They went to smoke.” He states. Eddie nods his head, turning to face the curly headed boy next to him. “Tell the others not to wait up to start to movie, okay? I don’t mind missing some of it.” Stan nods before walking off and sitting back in the seat he’s had the whole time, the recliner.

Eddie leaves the basement, telling the others he was just going to get something to drink. He ponders if the three would have gone out back or out front to smoke, before seeing the glint of a lit cigarette hanging from a gloved hand out the window on the back door. The hypochondriac slips his coat, boots, and gloves on, deciding against his hat and scarf because he’ll just be out there for a few minutes, before going to the back yard. 

The three are sitting on the stairs leading from the back porch to the yard, laughing, but they immediately turn when they hear the door slide open. “Uh, hi.” Eddie says awkwardly, because he really hadn’t been prepared on what to say when he came out here, and now he can’t think of anything to say on the spot.

Bev smiles at him and puts her cigarette out into the snow, leaving an ashy circle behind before standing, throwing the butt of the cigarette out into the yard, where Eddie knows Mrs. Denbrough is going to find it when she gets back to gardening, and then Bill’s going to get interrogated on it. But he doesn’t say anything, just smiles back, watches as she walks inside the house, then turns to face the other two awkwardly.

“Come sit, Eds.” Richie states, patting the spot where Bev was sitting next to him. Eddie breathes shakily, the warm air coming out of his mouth visibly, in the way Eddie would always force it to back when he was a kid and he had his inhaler and he could do that, pretending he was a dragon.

He sits next to Richie, and the three are in an awkward silence for a moment. “So, whatcha doing out in the cold? Ya miss me that bad?” Before Eddie can speak, Patty speaks. Because she can sense it, clearly she can remember that day, the bathroom, the blood, the knife. “I think he’s here to talk to me, Trashmouth.” She murmurs, blowing smoke out of her mouth. Richie glances between the two before putting his cigarette out and throwing the butt in the same direction Beverly did before walking off, no questions asked. And Eddie’s grateful for that, because he doesn’t really know if Patty wants Richie knowing what happened. 

“The bathroom, right?” Eddie nods. “Yeah.” He breathes out, reaching down to zip his coat up because it is a lot colder than he thought it would be. Neither of the two speak. “Why? Wha-What were you even doing?” Patty sighs, breathing out another cloud of smoke that reeks, makes Eddie want to cough the same way he did when he was around smokers as a kid, to make them feel bad, because,  _ oh, they’re smoking in front of the biggest and only asthmatic kid in Derry.  _

He doesn’t cough, though. Patty shrugs. “‘Why?’ Is a subjective question. Why do we do anything? Why are we here, sitting in the dark, in the cold snow? Why are we alive? Why did our parents decide to have unprotected sex and then give birth to a social outcast? Why did our parents decide to keep the baby? Why, why, why?” Eddie sniffles, the cold suddenly making his nose runny. He already wants to leave the conversation, begins to regret it. Instead, he just decides to lighten the mood and hopes she doesn’t get mad.

“Didn’t know I was in the presence of a philosopher.” Patty laughs, sniffling as well. “I’m not good enough to be a philosopher.” She states, running a gloved hand through her hair. “As for the, what was I doing? God, who knows. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time. I just do shit.” Eddie breathes shakily again. He regrets this. “I’m a druggie, half the time I’m high off my ass or just so far gone I can barely move.” She states, dropping her cigarette on the stair below her and watches as it fizzles out due to the snow.

“Why come out here and talk to me about it? I think you knew I wouldn't tell you. I’m not that close to you.” Eddie sighs, rubbing his gloved hands together because they’re cold, even despite the gloves on them. “I know. I don’t know why I came out here, I just thought I would. Why have you been so distant today?” Patty laughs dryly. “Figured you were scared of me, after that. Wanted to keep my distance.” Eddie shakes his head. “Not  _ that _ scared of you. Be a teenager, Patty. I don’t care. Just don’t kill me.” She laughs again before standing and walking off without another word.

Eddie sits there for a few more minutes, mulling over the conversation before standing as well and joining everyone else in the basement once again, squeezing in next to Richie on the beanbag, even though it’s way too small for two teenage boys. It’s still a lot more comfortable than the floor would have been.


	11. Chapter 11

_ Sunday, December 26, 1993 _

Eddie wakes up the next morning, back aching from sleeping on the floor and really fucking sweaty, probably from being cuddled up against Richie all night. He hadn’t fallen asleep cuddling with Richie, but he’s cuddling with him now, their legs laced together and Richie’s arms wrapped around Eddie’s waist, Richie’s face buried in Eddie’s shoulder and his mop of black hair all up in Eddie’s face. 

Eddie didn’t want to move, despite being so sweaty, and quickly becoming restless. He didn’t want the butterflies to fly away so quickly, didn’t want the heavy heart beating to calm down. So he stays like that, even though it continues to make his back hurt to lay on the floor and he has no idea what time it is. He stays, and he ignores the itch for a Xanax.

Most of the other Losers were still asleep, or at least still laying in the basement, so Eddie assumes it isn’t too late in the day, which definitely helps the urge to move away. Eventually his eyes get heavy and he allows sleep to take over him again, telling himself it’ll just be thirty minutes or so, just a nap.

💊💊💊

He drifts out of sleep again to giggling. It’s clearly his friends, and they’re obviously trying to stay quiet, but failing.

“G-G-Guh-guys, shut the fuck up! He’s w-waking up because you’re not being quiet!” The familiar voice of Bill somehow manages to quietly yell at the rest of the teens hovering over the brunette. Sleep still clouds his brain, but he can still feel Richie cuddling him, the same way he was when Eddie had woken up before.

He opens his eyes fully to look up at his friends. They’re passing a picture around and laughing, Beverly with a polaroid camera hanging around her neck. “Good morning, sleepyhead.” She says around giggles, before snatching the picture from Bill and tossing it down to Eddie. He sighs as he picks it up, seeing it’s a picture of him and Richie cuddling. 

“Real mature, you guys.” He mutters, swatting at their ankles because he doesn’t want to disturb Richie. “Assholes.” The teens laugh again, Violet squatting down to grab the picture because Eddie’s sure she knows that Eddie is on the verge of tearing that fucking picture to shreds. “Fuck off, you guys.” Richie mutters into Eddie’s back, signaling to the shorter boy that the ravenette is only really half asleep. 

Eddie swats at his friends ankles again. “Yeah, what Richie said. Fuck off.” The teens laugh, some playfully rolling their eyes before throwing the picture back down to the two and walking off. Eddie sighs and picks it up, shoving it under his pillow before closing his eyes again.

The peace of laying there in Richie’s embrace doesn’t last for long before the lanky boy behind him is getting up, stating that he’s hungry and can’t stand lying there anymore. It makes Eddie a bit sad, but he pushes the feeling away and takes the hand Richie offers to him to help him stand. 

Mrs. Denbrough hadn’t made breakfast for the kids, apparently, or if she had then she hadn’t made enough, because when the two make it up to the kitchen, there’s no food left out on the counter or the table. Eddie shrugs it off and grabs a bowl from the cabinet where the Denbrough’s keep their dishes, just deciding to make a bowl of cereal.

And, making that bowl of cereal, well, it goes great until he tries to grab the Cheerios from the top of the fridge, only to realize he can’t reach the box.

Richie comes up behind him at that moment, and Eddie just knows he’s got that stupid, cocky smirk on his face.

“Heya, shortstack. Need help?” Eddie groans at the nickname.  _ How does Richie come up with those things? Jesus Christ.  _ He turns to face the taller boy, looking up to meet his icy blue eyes and completely ignoring the cocky grin on his face that he knew would be there but still pisses him off nonetheless.

“No, asswipe, I don’t need help. Not from you. I’m perfectly fine.” Eddie states before turning back around to face the fridge. He jumps a few times to try to grab at the box, but it doesn’t work. Eventually Richie just grabs Eddie’s arm, pulls him away from the fridge, and grabs the box with no issues before handing it to Eddie. The brunette boy wants to slap him as he takes the box, but instead settles for growling at him and glaring as he pours the cereal into the bowl.

“Fuckface.” He mutters, shoving the box back at Richie once he’s done with it before pouring milk into the bowl. Richie laughs, and Eddie just gets even more pissed off.  _ When will he learn to shut the fuck up?!  _

Eddie doesn’t say anything, though, and instead just sits at the table in silence as he eats. He glares at Richie the whole time, and Richie just stands in front of the fridge, looking like he’s trying to hold back a laugh as he does. 

Once Eddie’s done eating he grabs his things from downstairs, says goodbye to everyone, and leaves. He’s beginning to walk down the sidewalk towards his house when Richie’s voice calls out after him, “Eddie!” Eddie groans but stops walking to allow the trashmouth to catch up.

Richie’s a little out of breath once he reaches Eddie, which isn’t a surprise, because Richie’s never seemed the most fit. “Where’s your car?” Eddie asks him, because why would he be walking through the snow if he had a car. “Uh, kinda crashed it. Into a mailbox. So it’s being fixed right now.” Eddie rolls his eyes as he laughs at the utter stupidity of the situation. “Dude, seriously? Whose mailbox?” Richie rolls his eyes at Eddie’s laughter. “My own mailbox, while backing out of the driveway.”    


“Oh my God, dude. That’s so fucking stupid.” Eddie says, beginning to walk again with Richie now beside him. Richie pushes him in the shoulder playfully. “Shut the fuck up.” He mutters. Eddie laughs again and pushes Richie back. 

Now Richie’s laughing, too. “How did you even get your fucking license?” Richie shrugs. “Uh, fudged the written test? And I failed my actual  _ driving  _ test so many times I think they just got sick of me and threw the license at me so I wouldn’t show up there again.” 

“Jesus, how many times did you fail?” Richie begins to count on his fingers. “Uh, don’t know?” Eddie scoffs. “Even I could drive better than you, if I had a license.” Richie looks over at Eddie in surprise. “You don’t have a license?” Eddie shakes his head with a sigh, the air fogging in front of his face. He shivers, the cold suddenly hitting him like a ton of bricks. Richie almost looks like he wants to say something, or give Eddie his jacket or something, but he seems to bite back whatever he wanted to say.

“Mom never let me have a license. ‘Oh, Eddie Bear, you grow up too fast! Driving is too dangerous, what if you get into an accident? It’s much safer if mommy drives you around for now.’” Eddie says, trying his best to imitate his mother’s screechy voice. “Wow.” Richie breathes out. “Yeah, she was a bitch. I hope she rots in jail, even though she only got, like, three years.” 

“What did she do?” Eddie glances over at Richie with a raised eyebrow. “To get thrown in jail, I mean.” Eddie shakes his head with a dry laugh. “More like what didn’t she do.” Eddie mutters, thinking of the many nights he went to bed hungry, because his mother hadn’t gotten herself out of that fucking chair in the living room to go grocery shopping, which meant no food. He thinks of the nights he laid in the hospital by himself, even though his mother was the one that dragged him there, but she had left the minute they had stuck an IV in his arm. He thinks of having to wear clothes too small for him for months until Bill noticed and started lending Eddie clothes. He thinks of her not listening when he told her about the time Henry touched him, touched him in bad, faggy ways, and all she had done was slap Eddie and call him a faggot.

Eddie almost wants to open up to Richie, but he isn’t sure. Richie’s such a trashmouth, what if he just makes it into a joke? What if he judges Eddie, begins to treat him like a baby, or a doll? What if, what if, what if?

“Earth to Eddie?” Richie asks, poking Eddie in the ribs. Eddie breathes shakily at the memories he tries so hard to suppress usually. “Fuck, she did so much. She didn’t do so much.” Eddie mutters, tears stinging his eyes as he shoves himself against Richie, pulling the taller boy into a hug, though he usually hates touch after those times Henry touched him the way he did. He doesn’t mind Richie’s touch, oddly enough.

Richie wraps his arms around Eddie, and just lets the smaller boy cry. He doesn’t pry, doesn’t ask what happened. Eddie’s sure he’s aware that he’s just not ready to talk about it, and Eddie’s grateful he doesn’t ask about it anymore.

“Hey, fags!” Eddie pulls away from Richie abruptly at the sound of Henry’s voice. There, in front of the two, is Henry and his gang, beginning to walk towards them. “Fuck, run!” Richie shouts, grabbing Eddie’s hand and pulling the brunette away from the boys, running in the opposite direction they were just walking.

Henry’s gang is too fast, though, and next thing they know they’re being shoved into an alleyway next to Mr. Keene’s pharmacy, a place Eddie hadn’t stepped foot in since he had stopped living with his mother. Before, though, when he had lived with her, he was constantly sent here to get his meds, tormented by Greta while waiting for the placebos before being tormented by Henry the second he stepped out the glass doors.

He had been beaten up in this alleyway many times. So many he’s lost count. He knows every part of this alleyway now, all the paintings on the walls, all the bloodstains, most of which his, save for two or three. 

“Fucking faggot, thought you learned your lesson.” Eddie doesn’t have any idea what Henry’s talking about, but he doesn’t care. “Just get it over with, Henry. Beat my ass. Kill me, for all I care. Just get it over with already.” Henry laughs dryly, pulling his switchblade from his pocket. “Oh, no. You gotta suffer. You faggots deserve to suffer. Both here, on earth, and in hell, where you’ll burn for eternity.” Henry states, punching Eddie in the jaw. Eddie just takes it, because he’s learned that’s what you should do. Don’t fight, you’ll get stabbed. Don’t yell for help, you’ll get your face shoved into the wall. Richie hasn’t seemed to learn that yet, because as soon as the punch is colliding with Eddie’s jaw, he’s yelling out for the shorter boy.

“Richie, just fucking shut up, let it happen. It’ll end out better for both of us, trust me.” Henry smirks. “Oh, the faggot’s got a brain. He’s right, Richie, just shut the fuck up and I won’t kill you.” Eddie breathes heavily as Henry turns his attention back to him. “Now, what should I do today? Beat your ass? Carve my initials into you? Hm? Maybe, we could have some fun.” Henry says, running his hands under Eddie’s shirt. “I bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you, fag?” Eddie shakes his head as he chokes back a sob. “No, no. Not-Not with Richie here.” Henry frowns, but pulls his hand away. “Aw, I figured you’d like if your little girlfriend here saw. Maybe he’d get to see what you like, pick up some tips.” Eddie shakes his head again. “Please no.”

Henry makes a displeased sound but listens anyway, pushing Eddie into the ground and kicking him a few times before going over to Richie. Eddie’s forced to watch as Henry does to Richie what he’s done to Eddie so many times, because his ribs hurt, his cheek is throbbing, everything hurts. He can’t bring himself to stand right now. Which means he’s forced to watch as Henry touches  _ Richie _ . 

Henry kneels down next to Eddie before the gang leaves the two. “If you had just let me do it to you, your little girlfriend over there wouldn’t have had to go through it. And your ass wouldn’t have been beat. But, I guess you live and you learn, huh?” He laughs as he stands before walking off, the shine of the blade on his knife glinting in the sun as he presses the button and the blade flips out before pushing it back in and doing it again.

Richie’s glued to the wall, his clothes all bunched up now that Henry’s touched him. Eddie should have just let it happen to him. 

Eddie sits up, with some struggle. Richie’s staring at him. He hates it. He feels guilty, for letting Henry touch Richie. He should have overcome the pain in his ribs and pushed Henry away from Richie.

“Richie.” His voice cracks on a sob as he chokes out the other boy's name. Richie is there, crouching in front of Eddie, in an instant. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have-I shouldn’t have let him. It should have been me.” Richie shakes his head, wiping the tears from his face. “No, no. It’s okay. I’m okay. I’m glad it was me, not you. You-You’ve had to go through that enough.” Richie states, beginning to gently lift Eddie from the ground. “Let’s just… Get to your house. Patch you up.” 


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a mess sorry in advance

_ Friday, December 31, 1993 _

Richie hadn’t talked to Eddie since that day, which hadn’t really surprised the hypochondriac. He fucking let Henry do that shit to Richie, of course the trashmouth wouldn’t wan to talk to him again. Eddie can’t deny that it didn’t hurt, though.

His injuries from Henry healed, as they were really only a few bruises, one on his cheek and the others along his ribcage, but none of his ribs were broken, luckily. 

Tonight he would get to see Richie, because tonight the Losers were celebrating New Years at the Tozier house. 

Until then, though, he was practically shitting his pants with anxiety. He had already taken a Xanax, and didn’t want to take another one because he knew they would be drinking and mixing that with even one pill is risky enough. 

So he just had to deal with the constant anxious thoughts.

_ What if Richie never wants to speak to me again? _

_ I’ve probably fucked everything up. _

_ Richie hates me. _

_ I hate myself. _

He tries to shake the thoughts away as he sits on his bed, but tears form in his eyes instead.

_ I’m such a fuck up. _

_ I should just die. _

_ Just kill yourself. _

_ Do it. _

_ Take the whole bottle of Xanax, drink later tonight, mix it, die. _

Eddie chokes a sob away.

_ No. _

_ Yes, you know you want to. _

_ No, my friends will miss me. _

_ No they won’t. Your friends don’t even like you. You have too many issues for anyone to ever truly like you. _

_ Shut up. _

_ You know it’s true. They hate you. They just pretend to like you. But deep down they think you’re annoying, they want you to kill yourself. _

“Shut up!” He shouts, and the thoughts fleet. It’s too late, though, because he’s already crying. He knows the thoughts aren’t right, his friends like him, but there’s still that what if. What if, what if, what if.

He decides to distract himself by looking at the pictures he has hanging in his room. He’s started using his polaroid more, always having it with him now. There’s the picture of him, Ben, Bill, and Bev from Halloween, then the picture of him and Richie cuddling in their sleep. A picture of him and Bill, Bill’s head on his shoulder, Beverly and Bill, holding hands. Ben, reading a book. A picture of everyone, the whole gang, which had been kind of difficult to get everyone squished into one picture but they had managed it.

Patty smoking. Beverly laughing. Mike, laying in the snow. Violet making a snowman. Stan rolling his eyes with a fond smile on his face. Eddie even has a picture of his father, cooking pancakes one morning. He’s got a picture of everyone important in his life.

“Eddie, I’m going grocery shopping! Do you want to come?” Frank calls up the stairs to the brunette. Eddie goes over to his ajar bedroom door to answer back with a ‘no.’ “Okay, I’ll be back soon. If you leave make sure to leave a note.” Frank states before there’s the sound of the front door opening and then closing, followed by Frank’s car driving off.

Eddie sighs and flops back on his bed. He’s still got three hours before he can go over to Richie’s house, and he knows it’s going to be a long three hours. 

💊💊💊

He knocks on the front door of the Tozier house. It’s a nice house, two stories, a garden in front of the front porch, a swing hanging on the porch, it even looks freshly painted, which Eddie knows means they just washed it at some point recently. There’s even a nice picket fence around the house, a basketball net in the driveway, which Eddie knows was meant for Richie but he also knows Richie never touches it.

He had arrived a bit earlier than the set time for everyone to start arriving, so he could talk to Richie about everything that happened last time they were together. He knows Richie had said it was fine, that he was okay and wasn’t mad at Eddie, but Eddie still can’t help but think he was just saying that. 

The front door opens after a moment, right when Eddie’s reaching out to knock again. A woman with raven colored hair tied up in a bun save for a few curls that must have slipped out, is the one that answered the door. She smiles at Eddie, reaching up to adjust the shoulder of the grey sweater she was wearing that looks a bit too big for her. She’s also wearing some extremely worn out looking jeans and dirty white socks. 

“Hi, you’re Eddie, right?” Eddie nods, smiling back at the nice looking woman. He knows she must be Richie’s mother, but if Eddie hadn’t specifically known Richie had no siblings he would have guessed she was his sister, she just looks so young. “I’m Richie’s mom, call me Maggie.” She states, reaching out to shake Eddie’s hand. He does, ignoring the thoughts that always sprout in his head when someone touches him of  _ germs _ . 

“Oh! Come in, you must be freezing.” She states, moving out of the way to allow Eddie to enter. She takes his coat and hangs it up as he slips out of his boots. “He’s up in his room, second door on the left upstairs.” Eddie nods, still a bit cold from walking to the house. “I’ll be in the living room, if either of you two need anything.” She states before walking off and disappearing through a doorway.

Eddie takes the chance to walk a bit slowly and look around, now knowing Maggie isn’t going to be practically hovering over him as he goes up to Richie’s room. There’s a family portrait next to the front door, over a sort of dresser looking thing that also holds a bowl full of keys, some candles, and a plant that isn’t quite clear whether it’s fake or real. 

As he walks up the stairs, he looks at the various things hanging up on the wall next to the stairs. There’s drawings signed with Richie’s name, drawings signed with another name,  _ Cora _ , as well as pictures. Pictures of Maggie and a man, when they were younger, a wedding photo of them, a picture of Richie with a girl that looks almost exactly like him. Eddie’s beginning to think Richie lied about not having a sibling.

He eventually finds his way to Richie’s room, looking into the other ajar doors in the hallway. The one next to Richie’s room is a bathroom, the one across from his room looking like it’s probably his parent’s room, and then a door next to his parent’s room that’s shut. Eddie wants to open it, but he really doesn’t want to get on the Tozier’s bad side, so instead he knocks on Richie’s door. He really hadn’t need Maggie to tell him which door it is, it’s pretty obvious just based on the Nirvana poster hanging on it, as well as the ‘Fuck off’ sign hanging over the Nirvana poster.

“What?!” Richie’s annoyed voice calls through the door when Eddie knocks. “Uh, it’s Eddie.” The door opens a moment later, a smiling Richie on the other side. “Eddie Spaghetti! Come in.” He states, moving out of the way to let Eddie into the bedroom. “You’re early.” Eddie sighs, awkwardly standing in front of the now closed door as Richie plops himself down on his messy bed, the springs in the bed creaking in protest as he does.

Eddie takes a second to survey the room. There are dirty clothes all over the floor, empty cigarette boxes everywhere too. On the desk sits a record player, and records on the bottom shelf of Richie’s bookshelf. There are also cassette tapes on his bedside table, and a walkman in the midst of them all. The walls are littered with polaroids and band posters. The smell of cigarettes and sweat makes Eddie’s nose wrinkle, but he doesn’t say anything about it.

“You can sit down, y’know.” Richie states, calling Eddie’s attention away from the smell. There’s another door in the room, on the side where the bathroom is, so Eddie assumes it must connect the two rooms.

Eddie sits on the bed awkwardly. “Why are you being so weird, dude?” Eddie breathes out. It’s now or never, he guesses. “Uh, I’m sorry for letting Henry do that to you.” He mutters. Richie sighs, running a hand through his mop of curls as he does. “I already told you, it’s fine. Better me than you.” Eddie shakes his head. “It should have been me, I-I’m used to it.” Richie sighs again, crawling over to where Eddie’s sitting and laying his hand overtop of the smaller boy’s. 

“You shouldn’t be used to it, and besides, if it were you, and I was forced to watch that, I might have killed him. I’m okay, I promise, Eds.” Eddie nods, not prying on why Richie would have killed Bowers, because it’s pretty clear he doesn’t want Eddie to ask. “Okay.” Richie pulls his hand away, and Eddie misses the touch immediately, but he doesn’t say anything about it. 

Then the thought of that girl that looked almost exactly like Richie floods into his mind. “I thought you didn’t have any siblings.” Eddie states, pulling Richie’s attention over to him yet again. “What?” Eddie sighs. “The pictures and the drawings on the stairs. Cora.” Richie sighs, nodding as he does.

“Yeah, Cora. Fuck. I didn’t realize you’d be paying attention to that stuff.” Richie states, yet again running a hand through his hair. “I had a sister, a twin.  _ Cora _ . She died. Hung herself, in her clos-in her closet.” Richie begins to get choked up, a sure sign to Eddie that he’s about to cry. “She was just bullied so fucking much, and one day she said she was sick. We believed her and mom and dad still went to work because we were thirteen, she’d be fine alone. I was the one to find her.” Eddie’s the one to initiate contact with Richie this time, placing his hand on top of Richie’s as the other boy had just done to him.

“That’s why I’m friends with Patty. They were best friends. Patty hasn’t been doing very well since then, hadn’t been doing all that good before, and that just made it worse. I think if it weren’t for me she would have done the same thing Cora had. And Stan, he tried, last year, but I had seen the signs in him that I hadn’t with Cora and found him in time.” Tears flow down Richie’s face now, the sound of a strangled sob escaping his throat. “Jesus, Rich. I-I’m so sorry, I wouldn’t have asked if I had known. I remember Cora, but I never knew you two were related. Sure, you looked like carbon copies in those pictures but I never knew her last name and I didn’t even know you existed back then.” Richie waves Eddie off. “You had to find out at some point or the other, we’re friends.” 

“I know, but I should have let you open up on your own time.” Richie once again waves Eddie off. “It’s fine, I don’t care. I’m not mad at you asking.” Eddie nods, looking up at Richie’s tear stained face. He has the urge to reach up and wipe the tears away. And for once, he allows the urge to take over him, and he reaches up to wipe the tears away. Richie doesn’t pull away and Eddie gently, gently wipes his fingers under Richie’s puffy eyes, collecting the salty tears and wiping them away.

The two begin to move closer, almost as though there’s a magnet between them. Eddie doesn’t fight it, allowing Richie to get closer, closer, closer, until there’s barely even an inch between them, their noses are touching. The door opens then, and they shoot apart, as though they had been burned.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just got broken up with, how’s your guys’ day going so far? :)

_ Saturday, December 31, 1993 _

Beverly stands in the doorway for a second before entering. Eddie wonders if she saw what just happened. What almost happened. What could have happened if she had taken just a few more minutes before entering the room. If she had seen it, she doesn’t say anything, she shows no sign that she did whatsoever.

“Marsh! Good to see you, good to see you!” Richie shouts, running over and giving his friend a hug. She laughs and hugs him back as she drops her overnight bag on the ground. “You too, Rich. Even though we saw each other, like, three days ago.” Richie laughs as Beverly pushes him away. “Yeah, yeah.” He says with a laugh. Beverly doesn’t join the boys on the bed, but rather makes her way over to the vinyls on Richie’s bookshelf and begins rifling through them. Once she finds one she likes, she takes it out of it’s packaging and places it on the record player, placing the needle on top and waiting for it to play. She doesn’t place the needle at the beginning of the record, rather a few songs in.

The song begins to play just a second later, it’s a song Eddie’s never heard before, but he doesn’t hate it. As he watches the redhead, he notices something he hadn’t noticed before.

“Holy shit, Bev! Your hair!” He shouts, causing her to laugh as she places the record sleeve on Richie’s desk, next to the record player. Her hair is a lot shorter now, no longer slightly longer than her shoulders but now barely reaching her chin. It’s a lot curlier now, too. 

She reaches a hand up to touch one of the curls framing her face with a smile. “Yeah, took you long enough to notice.” She states, walking over to join the boys on the bed. “Wait, can I touch it?” Richie asks, reaching a hand out towards her head. She rolls her head but nods. “Weirdo.” Richie laughs, sniffling as he twists one of her new curls around his finger.

“How did you get it to curl? You’ve always had straight hair.” Beverly shrugs. “Dunno. I cut it in the shower last night so of course it was wet when I went to bed and then I woke up this morning and it was curly.” She states, shrugging as she pulls away from Richie’s hand and instead rests her head on his lap. Richie continues to play with her hair still, only now with her head on his lap.

Eddie can’t help but feel a little pang of jealousy as he watches Richie play with Beverly’s hair, her head in his lap. He knows, rationally, there’s nothing between them, Beverly’s with Bill, for God’s sake, but he still feels it, deep in his veins. He ignores it, though, and tries not to let it get him too worked up. 

Bill arrives soon after, then Mike and Violet, Stan, Ben, and finally Patty. By the time everyone’s in Richie’s bedroom, they’ve gone through two other records and it’s almost dinner time. 

Eddie can’t help but notice that once Patty’s arrived, her and Stan seem awfully cuddly. Maybe not a ton, but certainly more than they were the last time Eddie had seen them together. 

Dinner comes and goes, and then everyone including Maggie and Wentworth Tozier sit downstairs, watching the New Years special on the TV. There’s alcohol, which Maggie and Went happily let the teens drink as well, because as they had said, “We’d rather you guys do it in the house.” There’s also, of course, snacks, water, soda, the basics of New Year’s food.

“So, who’s going to be kissing?” Maggie asks after a bit of small talk, ten minutes until the ball was about to drop. Eddie pointedly avoids looking over at Richie, despite wanting to. Maggie raises an eyebrow at the silence that follows her question. “No one? Are you serious? Come on, guys.” Beverly sighs but raises her hand. “Me and Bill, I guess.” Maggie’s eyes light up with excitement as she claps. “Yes! Hell yeah! Okay, anyone else?” Everyone else shakes their heads. Maggie rolls her eyes as she leans back against the back of the couch. “Boring.”

Maggie looks up at her husband, who she’s currently pretty cuddled up against. “Y’know, Went and I kissed on New Years when we were your age. We had only been dating, what, two, three weeks?” Wentworth shrugs. “Yeah, something like that. Anyway, look at us now! Happily married with tw- with a kid!” Eddie seems to be the only one, other than Richie, to not miss the way she almost said two kids. He guesses it must get hard, even after all this time, to adjust to losing a child.

When it’s five minutes until New Years, Richie separates himself from the group for a cigarette, under the guise that he’s getting something to drink. Eddie follows only a moment later, saying he’s going to the bathroom, but instead sneaking out to the front porch, where Richie’s sitting on the bench swing.

“Hey, Rich.” Eddie says, moving some snow off the seat next to Richie before sitting down. “Hey Eds.” Eddie sighs at the name, but doesn’t say anything. “You okay?” Richie looks over at Eddie, confusion on his face. “Yeah, why?” Eddie shrugs. “You just usually go outside with Bev or Patty. Not usually alone.” Richie’s the one to shrug this time, taking a deep breath from the cigarette before blowing it out. Eddie doesn’t say anything about the smoke.

“Sometimes I like being alone, believe it or not. I like to think. Sometimes.” Richie states, taking another deep breath of the cigarette before tossing it into the front yard. The two continue to sit in silence. Complete silence, save for the sound of the chains on the swing creaking as they swing it, just a bit. No cars drive by, no wind blows through, none of the neighbors leave their house. It’s quiet.

The sound of the Losers inside is what breaks Eddie from the moment of silence, of just listening to his thoughts. “They’re counting. We should go back inside, so we don’t miss the ball dropping.” Eddie states, almost standing, only for Richie to gently grab the shorter boy’s hand and pull him back down. “Let’s stay out here.” The brunette can tell something’s going on in Richie’s mind, so he obliges, despite wanting to go inside and spend the ball dropping with them. If Richie needs to talk, or anything, Eddie’s going to choose him first. Always.

_ Ten _

_ Nine _

Richie sighs, reaches up to turn Eddie’s face to face him. Eddie doesn’t fight it.

_ Eight _

_ Seven _

Richie leans closer, Eddie does the same. It’s like earlier that day, when it was almost as though there was a magnet pulling them together. Only this time, it’s stronger.

_ Six _

_ Five _

Richie’s cold, gloved hand is on Eddie’s cheek.

_ Four _

_ Three _

Eddie places his hands on Richie’s shoulders, over the lanky boy’s coat. 

_ Two  _

_ One _

Richie moves forward, connecting their lips.


	14. Chapter 14

_Sunday, January 1, 1994_

This is Eddie’s first kiss, so of course he doesn’t know what to do. Richie does, though, which Eddie is grateful for. He lets Richie guide him through the kiss, and it’s only when they need to break away for air do their lips separate.

As soon as that happens, though, and Eddie’s thoughts can no longer flood him with only _Richie’s kissing me_ , more thoughts come. 

_You just kissed Richie. A boy._

_Dirty Faggot._

_You’re disgusting._

_You probably have AIDS now._

Eddie shakes his head in an attempt to shake the thoughts away. It doesn't work. 

_You can’t get rid of us, Eddie._

_We’re just you. Stop trying to fight yourself._

_Embrace the truth. You’re dirty. A faggot._

_You deserve to burn in the pits of hell._

_You’re a dirty sinner, Eddie Bear._

“Eddie, hey, you okay?” Eddie shakes his head again, just wanting the thoughts to go away. He stands from the bench seat, and he runs. He runs inside the house, dropping all his winter clothes right inside the door, pounds up the stairs, and slams Richie’s door behind him. 

**~Richie’s POV~**

Richie stands in the doorway as everyone emerges from the living room. “What the fuck?” Stan asks, looking between where Eddie just ran up the stairs to Richie, who’s on the verge of tears. 

_You just fucked everything up, Richie._

_Eddie hates you now._

_He knows you’re a dirty fag now._

“Richie, what the hell just happened?” Maggie asks, trying to approach her son as cautiously as possible. She knows whatever just happened wasn’t good, and has no idea how her son might react to being approached. After Cora died, he was violent. Extremely violent. 

Richie doesn’t answer, running up the stairs too. He doesn’t join Eddie in his room, though, instead going over to Cora’s room. Her room has always been a sanctuary for him, even before she died. 

It’s the same as it always is, nothing moved since the day she died. Her closet door stays closed, a The Breakfast Club poster hung on the door. She’d always had such a huge crush on Brian. Richie would always tell her to shut the fuck up when she would talk about how cute he was. He wished he could go back in time and listen. Maybe that would have made a difference. Maybe if he had listened to her rant about how cute that boy was, she would still be here. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Her bed is still clad in that Paris themed bed set, and it’s still made, as it always was. There are still about a million pillows on there, the stuffed elephant Cora always slept with laying front in center in front of the pillows. Her desk is messy, notebooks strewn about, pencils and markers in the pencil holder at the corner. Her corkboard, littered with pictures of her and Patty, her and another girl, Julie Sanchez, who is now known as the school heartbreaker. 

Then there are the other posters on the walls. A The Babysitters Club poster above her bed, A Heathers poster, and many others. Her bedside table, or at least one of them, much like Richie’s, is littered with cassettes, a walkman. Richie walks over, just looking down at the cassettes. He always likes to do that, even though by now he’s memorized every artist she’s ever listened to, almost every song.

Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Tiffany, Rick Springfield, John Lennon, Blondie, Oasis. Blondie was always her favorite.

Richie sniffles, crawls up onto her bed. He does this a lot, when he’s sad. He sits on her bed, leaned against her pillows, and cuddles that stuffed elephant on her bed. It sounds pathetic, but it always helps. Sometimes he even sleeps in here, but it’s not often. He doesn’t know why he likes to come in here when he’s upset, there’s just something about the room that comforts him.

On Cora’s other bedside table there’s a jewelry box, the kind with those ballerinas that dance in it while it plays music. It always used to get on Richie’s nerves, but now he would kill to hear it again, to hear Cora open it, wind it up, jingle the jewelry together as she pulls a necklace out of it. There’s a box of tissues, some miscellaneous makeup containers, a lamp.

The elephant still smells like her, of course it does. Maggie still goes out of her way to get the same laundry detergent Cora always had to use, because she had sensitive skin and the detergent the rest of the family used irritated her skin. And once things have been washed, usually once every few months because the stuff gets dusty from not being used, Maggie pulls out the perfume Cora always used and sprays it through the room, soaks it into the fabrics of the stuffed animal, the bedsheets, the clothes in the closet. Sometimes she’ll even soak stuff in the shampoo Cora used to use, if she’s feeling up to it.

Richie sobs into the elephant, tries to imagine it’s his sister. He likes to talk to her, when he’s in here, he likes to think she hears it, that she might respond one day, as silly as it is.

_Hey, Cora. Long time no see, huh? I’ve been happier lately, so I haven’t really needed to talk._

_I kissed Eddie. My best friend. And I fucked it all up. He hates me now, I’m sure._

There’s no response, of course there isn’t. He can still hear everyone talking downstairs, trying to figure out what happened.

_God, I wish I could talk to you in person._

The door opens, then, Richie’s mother standing in the doorway. She sighs and walks forwards, closes the door behind her before joining her son on the bed.

“Rich, what happened? Eddie’s shut himself in your room and won’t come out for anyone. And I know you only come in here when you’re upset.” Maggie reaches over to push a strand of hair from Richie’s face. She sighs when Richie doesn’t respond. “Please talk to me.” Richie looks over at his mother with tear filled eyes.

“I kissed him.” Is all the lanky boy says. Maggie reaches her arms out to him, allowing Richie to crawl into his mother’s arms and accept her soothing words. “Everyone hates me now.” Maggie pulls her son from the hug to look at his face. “Why would everyone hate you?” Richie looks down at the elephant stuffie in his arms. “Because I’m a faggot.” She pulls him back into the hug. “I don’t hate you, Went isn’t going to hate you. We support you. I’ve told you, so many times. We don’t care who you love, or who you want to be. We love you, and we support you, as long as you’re a good person.” Richie sobs into his mother’s shoulder. “Eddie hates me.” She sighs, rubbing a hand up and down Richie’s back to try to soothe him. She really doesn’t know what to say, doesn’t know enough about Eddie to know whether Eddie really wouldn’t accept Richie for being gay. 

“Everything’s going to be okay.” Is what she settles on saying. “If he doesn’t accept you for liking boys, then it’s for the better. You don’t deserve mean people in your life.”

**~Eddie’s POV~**

Eddie paces Richie’s messy bedroom, kicking clothes out of his way as he does. His thoughts are racing through his brain a mile a minute, his friends are knocking on the door to see what’s going on, and he’s panicking. 

_Richie kissed you._

_I know._

_He’s gay._

_I know._

_He likes you._

_No he doesn’t. He just-he just wanted to kiss someone when the ball dropped._

_Your friendship is ruined. It’s going to be awkward now._

_No, I’ll make sure it isn’t._

Eddie kind of wants to scream. He still has the taste of Richie in his mouth, the taste of cigarettes, alcohol, and potato chips. Usually Eddie would hate it. But oddly enough, he doesn’t. Because it’s Richie.

There’s yet another knock on the door. Eddie’s starting to get fed up with all this _fucking_ knocking.

“What?!” He shouts, with much more venom than he had really meant. But he’s tired, overwhelmed, and panicking, so sue him if he’s a bit irritable right now.

“Eddie, W-what the fuck happened?” Bill asks, but Eddie doesn’t answer. There’s an audible sigh on the other side of the door, followed by talking. “Eddie, let us in, please.” Beverly states with a sigh. Eddie sighs as well, accepting defeat, and opens the door for his friends. They’re all standing in front of the door, Beverly almost toppling over onto Eddie from leaning on the door.

“I’m not telling you what happened, but I will let you in.” He states before anyone can ask. Everyone groans. Eddie rolls his eyes as he moves out of the way to let everyone into the room. “Shut the fuck up, I’m not telling you, end of story. Where’s Richie?” Everyone but Patty and Stan shrugs. “We dunno, he just came up here and disappeared.” Eddie sighs. “I’ll go find him.” He mutters, walking out of the room to find Richie before anyone can oppose.

He hears talking from one of the rooms across the hall, so he walks over and first peeks into Richie’s parent’s room. It’s empty, so he moves to the other room. The door is closed. Now, he thinks he knows who this room belongs to. Or, used to belong to. Cora.

He knocks on the door, waiting a minute before hearing Maggie shout “Who is it?” Eddie sighs shakily, his hands are shaking. He should have thought this out. “It’s Eddie.” He states. There’s whispers, but he can’t hear what they’re saying. “Come in.” He opens the door, his heart dropping at the sight of Richie, cuddling a stuffed elephant, tears staining his face. Maggie stands from the bed, pats Eddie on the shoulder, and walks out, making sure to close the door behind her.

Eddie walks over to the bed and joins Richie on it, sitting down across from the ravenette. This bed is significantly more comfortable than Richie’s is, he notices.

“Eds I-”

“Richie-”The two shut up immediately, upon realizing they’ve happened to speak at the same time. “You first.” Eddie states. Richie grips the elephant impossibly tighter to himself. “Eds.... _Eddie_ , I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have kissed you.” Eddie runs a hand through his hair. “Are you mad?” Eddie shakes his head. “No, Richie, I’m not mad. It’s okay. Still friends?” Richie looks like he wished Eddie had said something else, but nods anyway, a slight smile now on his face. “Still friends.”


	15. Chapter 15

_ Monday, January 3, 1994 _

Eddie sighs as he looks up at the snow covered school building towering over him. School has started again, winter break now over. But Eddie wasn’t ready for it to be over, because that meant socializing with Richie, actually having to see him and speak to him. It’s not that Eddie didn’t want to see Richie, of course he did! He was just scared of the potential awkwardness.

The bell rings, urging the boy to walk into the school, because if he waits any longer he’s going to be late for homeroom. He makes a beeline to his locker, luckily with none of his friends trying to have a conversation with him, and then gets to homeroom, right on time.

He sighs as he makes his way to his desk, already wanting the boring school day to get over with.

💊💊💊

Lunch comes far too slowly, but he doesn’t complain when it finally does come. He goes up to the roof to get more Xanax from Richie, and then he joins everyone at the lunch table. Richie joins a few minutes later, but not alone, like he usually is. Instead, he’s with a girl. It’s a girl Eddie’s heard of before, of course he has, everyone’s heard of her. He doesn’t mind her joining them for lunch, until he notices the way her and Richie’s hands are clasped.

Julie Sanchez, the school heartbreaker, is holding Richie’s hand. It’s been about a day, and Richie’s suddenly into girls again. Eddie doesn’t really understand, but Richie looks happy, so he semi accepts it. 

“Hey, guys. This is-” Richie doesn’t even have to finish the sentence before everyone else is finishing it for him. “Julie.” Richie nods. “Yeah.” She looks awkward, out of place. Eddie supposes with the reputation she had, it’s no surprise she seems out of place. Usually she hangs out with Greta anyway, and this is the Losers, which is all new territory for her.

“W-W-Well, I’m going to the b-b-barrens later. T-To looks for Georgie.” Eddie sighs as he turns to face Bill. He thought Bill was done dragging his friends around to looks for Georgie months ago. Eddie knew he had been sneaking out some nights to look, but now he’s dragging his friends into it again.

“I-I know they closed his c-c-c-case, and it’s been a long t-t-time, but I still have hope. And now we’ve got all these people in th-th-thuh-this group, so maybe we could cover more ground.” Eddie sighs again. Everyone’s basically assumed Georgie’s dead by now. The group agrees nonetheless, because they’d feel bad if they told Bill they weren’t going to find his missing and most likely dead brother.

“We’ll meet i-in front of the school at the end o-o-uh-of the day.” Bill states. Everyone nods again, to show they’ve understood, and then Richie’s stealing the spotlight again.

“Hey, Eds. Guess what?” Eddie groans. “What? And don’t call me that, asshat.” Richie laughs. “We’re dating. Me and Julie. That’s what.” Eddie eyes the two of them. Julie nods when his eyes land on her, but she doesn’t seem to be too happy to be in a relationship with Richie. She is known to date around, though, so Eddie’s sure she doesn’t actually like any of the guys she dates.

“Great, I’m happy for you, trashmouth.” Eddie mutters, before going to his lunch and finally beginning to eat. He doesn’t speak for the rest of lunch.

💊💊💊

After school, Bill is the first to the front doors, Eddie soon joining him. They don’t have to wait long for the others to join them, luckily, because it’s so cold Eddie’s sure that if they waited out there long enough his balls might freeze and fall off. 

“Let’s go, guys. It’s fucking freezing.” Richie states, shivering a little. Bill sighs and begins to lead the group to Richie’s car, where they all pile in, with a bit of struggling. There isn’t enough room for everyone, so they have to make due, which means a few people with others on their laps.

It goes like this: Richie in the driver’s seat, Eddie in the passenger’s, Bill, Mike, and Ben in the backseat. Bev sits on Ben’s lap, Patty on Bill’s, Stan on Mike’s, and then Violet and Julie shoved into the floorboard. Once all the teens have gotten shoved into the tiny car, it’s uncomfortable for everyone, but they can’t help but laugh.

“I wish Richie wasn’t the only one in the group with a fucking car.” Julie states once the car has pulled out of the driveway of the school and is now on the road. Mike nods in agreement. “Yeah, it’d be a lot easier.” 

“Well some of us don’t have a license, and I guess others just don’t have money.” Eddie states, turning to face all the teens shoved into the backseat. “I got my car from the junkyard and fixed it up myself, Eds. Money is no excuse.” Eddie rolls his eyes and playfully punches Richie in the arm. “Shut the fuck up.”

“Jesus, no matter where I sit I’m on trash.” Violet states with a sigh as she shifts in the floorboard. “You need to clean your fucking car.” Richie laughs as he shrugs the best he can considering he’s currently driving on pretty icy roads right now. “Hey, some of the trash came with the car!” Eddie gags. “You’re telling me some of the garbage and shit in here isn’t from you? It’s from some random ass stranger?”

“Yeah.” Eddie gags again, pulling the inhaler he hasn’t used in forever out of his pocket and taking a hit of it. “That’s it. I’m never riding in your fucking car again.” He states, shoving the inhaler back into his backpack, which is probably where it’ll stay until he feels the need to use it again. 

Richie laughs again. “What if I cleaned it?” He asks, turning to face Eddie for a minute before looking back at the road. Eddie rolls his eyes. “Do you even know how to clean?” Richie takes a minute to respond, which even without the response is answer enough for the hypochondriac. “...No.” Richie responds reluctantly. “That’s what I thought.”

The car slows to a stop after a few more minutes of driving, right on the edge of the road. It’s the closest they could get to the barrens with the car, though. Everyone loads out of the car and climbs down the steep hill to the barrens, trying their best not to slip in the ice and snow. Eddie almost does slip, but luckily Mike is standing in front of him to catch him.

Richie almost seems jealous as Mike helps Eddie the rest of the way down the hill, their hands clasped just to ensure safety. Eddie shrugs it off, though, because he knows that can’t be right. Richie has a girlfriend, he can’t be jealous over Eddie.

The teens eventually make it to the barrens, Bill in the lead. They stop almost as soon as they’re there, though, because there’s no need for searching, they soon realize. 

Georgie’s body is there. It’s mangled, but it’s there. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, i know this was short and boring but it was just kind of a filler chapter


	16. Chapter 16

_Monday, January 3, 1994_

Bill’s crying. Richie’s puking. Beverly is pacing. Ben is silent. Violet’s walking over to the body. Patty’s trying to walk away from everyone, just trying to put distance between herself and the body. Mike is rambling, hugging Bill to try to soothe him in some way. Julie’s nowhere to be seen, she bolted as soon as she caught a glimpse of the body. Eddie doesn’t know what to do. Everything’s happening so fast. He’s nauseous, the nausea coming from a mix of Richie puking right next to him and the body in front of him. 

Georgie’s definitely dead. He’s missing an arm, an eye, his hair is matted with sewer water, his yellow raincoat barely hanging onto his body, only by the remaining arm. It’s trying to untangle itself from his body, trying to float off into the greywater. He’s missing a rain boot. There’s a soggy, bloody paper boat lying on the ground near him. 

“Jesus Christ.” Eddie mutters, trying to filter out the sound of Richie now dry heaving because he’s puked everything in his stomach out. Patty’s poking the body with her falling apart Converse, for some reason.

“Patty, get away from him, or at least stop fucking kicking him!” Bill states, no stutter at all even evident in any of his words. She listens, taking a few steps away from the body. Eddie, against his better judgement, walks over and picks up the boat. The writing on it is smeared, from the water, but the **SS. Georgie** is still slightly legible. Eddie feels a lump get stuck in his throat as he reads it. Much like Bill, he had kind of been in denial up until now. He still had hope. But now he’s seeing Georgie’s dead, mangled body right in front of him, and he can’t deny anything about it anymore. Because Georgie’s right there, missing an arm and an eye and chunks of hair and he’s got a bullet wound directly in the center of his forehead.

“We need to tell the cops, guys.” Ben states, finally seeming to have broken out of his trance or whatever he was in that had thrown him into silence before. Eddie’s hands are shaking as he drops the boat, suddenly overcome with the realization that _it’s fucking covered in grey water and blood._

He begins to cry as well, because he was close to Georgie. He had loved Georgie like his own little brother, not his best friend’s little brother. And now Georgie was dead. Of course it hurt, of course Eddie was going to cry.

He feels someone’s arms wrap around him and begin to drag him away from the body as he cries, and he doesn’t fight. He suddenly wants to put as much space between himself and the body as possible. 

Eddie knows the arms are Richie’s, which is probably the main reason why he’s so okay with being touched right now. Usually he hates being touched suddenly, in any way. Especially when he’s crying, but he welcomes the feeling of Richie’s arms around him. He even turns and hugs Richie back once Richie’s done dragging him, which even surprises himself, especially since Richie just got done vomiting on the ground not even two feet away from where the two now stand.

“G-G-Guys, l-let’s get out o-o-o-o-uh-of here. We g-g-g-g-guh-gotta go tell the p-p-police.” Bill states, his stutter much worse than usual. That’s not surprising, though. The teens listen to Bill and begin to make their way back up the steep hill leading down to the barrens, not a single person complaining as they’re shoved back into the car, the same way they were before. All Eddie sees is Georgie’s body, laying in front of him, the boat in his hands, every single time he blinks. He wishes he didn’t have to blink.

The ride to the police station is silent, save for Bill’s crying. Richie’s the one that goes in, and he comes back out a few minutes later, followed by Chief Bowers and a few other officers. Richie drives to where they were before, gets out of the car to tell the officers where the body is, and gets back in. The teens sit there for a few minutes, watching as the officers go down there to get the body. The drive away before the officers show back up at their cars, because none of the teens think they could handle seeing the body again.

Richie drives everyone to their places, first Beverly, then Ben, Bill, Mike and Violet, Patty, Julie, and then Eddie. He gets out with Eddie, though, deciding to just hang out with the brunette for a bit before going home himself. 

They sit in Eddie’s room in silence, the only sound being the radio Eddie had turned on after a few minutes of them sitting like that, because he really can’t handle complete silence, even when he’s with someone else. The thoughts, the bad ones, envelope him quickly when there’s no background noise, no matter how many people he’s with.

“Rich?” Eddie mutters, looking up from his hands that are wrapped around his legs, which are pulled up against his chest. They’re both sitting on his bed, Eddie against his pillows and Richie at the foot of the bed, gently humming along with the Queen song playing. 

Richie looks up at Eddie upon hearing him say his name, though, the humming stopping so he can really show he’s all ears for Eddie. “Yeah, Eds?” Eddie doesn’t respond, but gently crawls forward, towards Richie, and pulls the lanky boy into a hug. Richie hugs back immediately, despite being a bit taken aback at the suddenness of the gesture. It’s no surprise that Eddie’s hugging him, though, Richie knows he needs a bit of comforting after what they saw. All the teens were shaken up after they saw that, and Richie and Eddie still are. The two boys are sure they’re going to be a bit shaken up for a few days.

Eddie buries his head into Richie’s shoulder, and cries. Richie, luckily, doesn’t say anything, only buries his face in Eddie’s almost curly hair. The two boys sit like that for God knows how long, until Frank is getting back home from work and asking them if Richie would be staying for dinner.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a double update today because i’m bored

_Tuesday, January 4, 1994_

January fourth, aka Bill’s birthday. It’s miserable right from the start, Eddie being forced to go to school despite how badly he doesn’t want to, because he has really no reason to stay home. Bill got to stay home, because Georgie was his brother, but despite Eddie being close to Georgie when he was alive, Eddie wasn’t actually related to the boy in any way, so there was no reason for him to stay home. 

So Eddie went through the school day as usual, a bit more sluggish, but normal. And then after school he gathered everyone up and they went to Bill’s house, even Julie, who had shown up to school that morning as though she hadn’t just about given the group a heart attack running off and not coming back when she saw Georgie’s body.

They, yet again, had to squish into Richie’s cramped, messy car, with many complaints. Ben, the whole time, was muttering under his breath that he was going to get a car soon because he really couldn’t fucking handle being shoved in this car much more.

They soon pull into the Denbrough house’s driveway, Richie just barely missing their mailbox as he backs in. Richie’s laughing as he shuts the car off while Eddie is hyperventilating, because they almost fucking hit Bill’s mailbox. 

The teens load out of the car and walk up to Bill’s house, where Bill is there to greet them with a sad smile. Eddie smiles back at him, just as sadly, and they all file into the house.

It seems cold, sad, even sadder than it had before, when Georgie was just missing. Now, all the pictures of his and drawings of his hanging up in various places seem like just a bittersweet memory, all just sour reminders that the child had once existed, once taken up a place on this earth, and now doesn’t.

All because of some evil person that no one knows the identity of yet, because whoever it was hid the evidence pretty well. So far, all the police have gotten is that whoever killed Georgie was probably the same person that killed the other various children who had gone missing months ago as well, Betty Ripsom and Edward Corceran, a few others Eddie couldn’t remember the names of. He knows that’s the only thing that they’re going to get, because even if the murderer’s fingerprints were all over Georgie’s body, Derry’s police do nothing for anybody in this shitty town, so Bill and his parents are never going to get closer. None of the dead kids’ parents are going to get closer. 

“Th-Thuh-There’s a cake on the counter, h-help yourselves, guys.” Bill states, closing the front door behind the teens. Eddie leads everyone to the kitchen, where there’s a small cake sitting on the counter, a slice already cut out of it. There’s messy, sad writing on it that says ‘Happy Birthday, Bill!’ And there’s no indentations in the top, meaning Bill didn’t even get candles. Eddie can tell the cake isn’t one of Mrs.Denbrough’s homemade cakes, either, it’s clearly a store bought cake with writing on it.

Eddie sighs and picks up the knife sitting next to the cake, helping himself to it and even making plates for everyone else. There’s not enough seats at the dining table for everyone so they sit on the kitchen floor, leaning against cabinets, walls, and the fridge as they eat silently.

“This is depressing, isn’t it?” Richie asks halfway through his slice of cake. “Happy seventeenth though, Big Bill. Hopefully your eighteenth will be happier.” Eddie glares at the trashmouth and slaps him in the arm. “Shut the fuck up, his brother’s fucking dead, Rich.” He hisses. Richie sighs, turning to face Bill. “Sorry, dude. I’m not good at this. If it makes you feel any better my sister’s dead, too. I know how it feels. Sucks.” Bill nods sadly, looking at the tile of the kitchen floor. “Y-Y-Yuh-Yeah. Sucks.” 

💊💊💊

Eddie sighs as he sits down at his desk to do his english homework, some book report or something. He’s not going to read the fucking book, he’s just going to read the summary and bullshit it. 

There’s a knock on his doorframe, causing the boy to turn. Frank stands in the doorway, not casually leaning against it as he usually does, rather just opting to stand there. “Can I come in?” He asks. Eddie nods, dropping his pencil on his desk and listening as it rolls across the surface as he watches his father sit on his neatly made bed. The two sit in silence for a moment. “I don’t know how close you were to Georgie, but I know you’re probably not feeling too epic about everything.” Eddie sits, waiting expectantly as his father seems to think about what to say next. “You’re handling it really well, though, I guess is all I really wanted to say. And if you ever need to talk to someone, I’m here, or I’m okay with finding a therapist or something if you’re more comfortable with that. Whatever you need.” Eddie clears his throat.

“Thank you… dad.” He mutters, still a bit unsure about calling his own father ‘dad.’ It always seems to make Frank a little happier, though, which Eddie is grateful to see. Frank clears his throat this time, standing to go to leave. “Well, I’ll leave you to it.” He murmurs, going to walk out the door. 

“Uh, dad?” Eddie asks, right as Frank’s about to walk out the door. Frank turns to face him expectantly. The hypochondriac boy takes a deep breath, hyping himself up for what he’s about to say, before finally spitting it out. “I love you.” Frank visibly smiles at that, a bit caught off guard but happy about it nonetheless. Eddie looks down at his fingers, which are fiddling with each other as his heart pounds nervously. He knows it’s irrational, to be nervous, Frank’s his _father_ , for fuck’s sake, but he still can’t help it. When he told his mother that he loved her he never meant it, he just said it so she would stay content with him.

“I love you too, Eddie.” Eddie looks up at his father when he says that. The two sort of awkwardly stare at each other, and Frank goes to leave again, only this time he’s not called back by Eddie, but rather, a loud bang coming from Eddie’s window.

Eddie stands and makes a beeline for his window, opening the curtains to see a certain trashmouth smiling at him sheepishly as he rubs his elbow, teetering around on the tree branch he’s perched on dangerously. Eddie rolls his eyes and lets him in, watching as the lanky boy thumps around awkwardly, almost taking the curtains down with him as he climbs into Eddie’s room. 

“Looks like you’ve got a visitor.” Frank states once Eddie’s gotten the window closed. Eddie rolls his eyes again and takes Richie’s coat from him, tossing it across the room, in the general direction of his closet. “Yeah, looks like it.” Eddie mutters. “I’m guessing he’s going to stay?” Richie nods in response to Frank’s question as Eddie yanks Richie’s snow covered beanie off his head and throws it on the bed. 

Frank leaves after another minute, closing the door and leaving the boys alone. Eddie turns to Richie and smacks him in the chest. “Idiot, use the fucking front door next time, Romeo.” The brunette states angrily, a hint of what Richie thinks, _hopes_ , is a blush dusting his cheeks. 

Eddie gently takes Richie’s arm in his hand once Richie’s gotten all his jacket’s off and is now just wearing a tacky Hawaiian shirt littered with bananas, a band shirt, and jeans. “Jesus, you scraped your elbow up good. C’mon, I’ll go patch it up.” Richie allows Eddie to gingerly lead him to the bathroom and plant him down on the lid of the toilet. “I’m getting some mixed signals here, Eds. Do you hate me, or no?” Eddie fondly rolls his eyes and takes the first aid kit from under the sink. “Don’t call me that, asshole.

He takes Richie’s arm and wipes the scrape with an alcohol wipe, a bit of blood wiping off and staining the wipe. “Eds, that huuuuuuurts.” Richie whines, wincing at the sting of the alcohol on his scrape. Eddie sighs and pulls a purple bandaid out of the first aid kit. “Oh, you poor baby. You’re not fucking dying, Rich.” He states, opening the bandaid and gingerly placing it on the scrape. “All done.”

“Kiss it better?” Richie asks, looking up at Eddie with a look Eddie could only call puppy dog eyes as the hypochondriac cleans everything up. “No, you’re not a child.” He states, blatantly ignoring that little itch inside him telling him to _do it, Eddie_. 

Richie whines again and follows Eddie as he goes back to his room and shuts the door behind himself. “Now shut up, I gotta bullshit a paper for english.” Eddie states, sitting down at his desk yet again. “The book report?” Eddie nods as Richie plops himself down on the edge of the bed. “I could help? I’m already done with it.” Eddie looks at Richie skeptically. “Eds, I get all A’s.” Eddie rolls his eyes at the nickname, but scoots his desk chair over to let Richie come over and stand next to him. “C’mon.” 

Richie whoops as he goes to join Eddie at his desk.


	18. Chapter 18

_ Saturday, June 18, 1994 _

Eddie rolls his eyes at the dumb joke Richie just made as he swings the hammock just a bit, a foot resting on the floor to swing the cloth back and forth. 

It’s summer now, school ending a week ago, which means a shit ton of free time for the teens. They’re in a clubhouse Ben had been building through the school year, originally only for Bill, Eddie, and Ben, but now for any of their large friend group. Obviously not everyone at the same time, ten seventeen year olds in the club house altogether would be torture. 

For today it’s just Richie and Eddie. Ben’s off working, because every dollar he pulls in to help his mother with the bills and such helps, so he’s mowing his neighbour’s lawns and such. Bill’s on a date with some girl from his history class, named Audra or Audrey or something, Eddie thinks. Beverly’s off at her aunt’s for the summer, Violet and Mike are at the farm, helping their grandpa because he’s getting weaker and weaker. Julie doesn’t hang around all that much anymore, her and Richie broke up maybe a week or two after they got together, which doesn’t surprise Eddie in the slightest. Patty and Stan are bird watching together, Eddie never expecting Patty to be one to enjoy bird watching. 

The air in the clubhouse is sticky and humid, even with the door open, and a fan running. Eddie feels like he’s going to die as he thumbs through some random comic Richie picked up on his way to the club house. There was a bag of them resting by the hammock that Eddie keeps accidentally kicking as he sways his foot, but Eddie has no interest in moving. He doesn’t have much interest in continuing to sit in the hammock, legs tangled with Richie’s because they couldn’t stop arguing over the ten minute rule that had been established so Eddie just climbed in there with Richie and after a few minutes of fighting they were comfortable, even with all five foot eleven of Richie’s lanky limbs stuffed in there beside Eddie’s five foot three figure.

“I’m bored.” Eddie whines, causing Richie to toss his comic book across the clubhouse and sit up. “Thank fuck you said something, I thought I was going to go insane reading the same sentence over and over again.” He states, brushing his sweaty bangs away from his forehead. Richie’s glasses are slipping down his sweaty nose, too, and Eddie kind of just wants to reach forward and push them up, despite the gross sweat covering them.

Eddie sighs and stands from the hammock, his legs stinging a bit as he has to pry them from Richie’s sweaty legs. He adjusts his short red shorts that he usually hates wearing but wears them anyway because they come in handy on days like this, the days where it’s just insufferably hot and no matter what you do you can’t cool down. He’s also wearing a yellow polo shirt, which he’s sure probably clashes with the red shorts but for once he doesn’t give a shit.

Eddie steps over Richie’s Hawaiian shirt that was discarded only five minutes after he arrived, leaving him clad in only a Star Wars shirt and jean shorts, and it had taken a lot of yelling from Eddie to convince him to even keep the Star Wars shirt on. 

“C’mon, let’s go see a movie or something.” Eddie mutters, grabbing Richie’s discarded Hawaiian shirt from the floor and tossing it at the ravenette. Richie groans, allowing the shirt to land on his head and cover his face. “I’m fucking  _ poor _ , Eddie, I can’t go see a movie.” Eddie rolls his eyes as he watches Richie pull the Hawaiian shirt from his head and throw it back at Eddie, now covered in sweat from Richie’s mop of curls. Eddie shrieks and hits the shirt as far away from himself as he can in a moment of panic at just the thought of the  _ sweat  _ and the  _ germs  _ covering it now.

“Fucking disgusting, asshat.” Eddie mutters as Richie laughs and clambers out of the hammock. “I’ll fucking pay, let’s just go see a movie before I have a heatstroke.” Eddie states, already beginning to climb up the ladder to the hatch of the clubhouse. Richie gladly follows once he’s thrown his Hawaiian shirt on over the Star Wars shirt.

Eddie groans as he closes the hatch of the clubhouse while Richie’s mounting his bike. There’s literally no fucking wind today, and Eddie’s sick of it. He knows that at least when he rides his bike he’ll get a bit of air, hopefully, and that’s the only thing keeping him from going home and sitting in front of his AC all day.

The two ride to the movie theater, buying tickets for the only movie that’s showing at that time, some horror movie about a werewolf. Richie had seemed less than happy about that movie, to which Eddie had to tease him a bit about being a scaredy cat who couldn’t handle some man in a fursuit. 

They got their candy then claimed some seats at the back of the theater, ones above some of the other seats, sort of like on a platform or something. Richie places his popcorn on the thick railing of the area as they sit and the movie starts. 

A little into the movie Eddie props his feet up onto the railing, forgetting about the popcorn and knocking it off. The two teens stand and look down to see if it hit anyone, only to see it landed directly on Bowers and his gang. Eddie jumps back, away from the railing, but it was too late, he’d seen them. 

“Shit, Rich, they saw me!” He shouts, going to grab Richie’s hand to drag him out of the theater. Richie resists his tugging, though, and lifts his coke before flipping it over to dump it on Bowers as well. “If I were you guys, I wouldn’t pay to see a monster movie, I’d stay home and look in the mirror!” He shouts before tugging Eddie out of the theater. Eddie can’t help but be acutely aware of everyone now staring at them as they run out of the theater, down alleyways and through the town, just trying to get to a safe place or at least outrun Bowers. The sound of Bowers and his gang running after them and shouting at them echos through the weirdly quiet town as they run, soon somehow finding themselves at the barrens.

They stop for a minute to breathe, because they no longer hear Bowers behind them. Richie abruptly begins to laugh loudly, laughing so hard tears spring up in the corners of his eyes. Eddie just stares at him oddly, watching as he laughs. He kind of wants to laugh, too, but can’t bring himself to do it. He’s too scared about what’s to come now. God knows what Bowers is going to do next time they see him.

“Rich, Bowers is going to fucking kill us.” Eddie states breathlessly, tugging on Richie’s hand like a child to grab the boy’s attention. Richie looks down at his friend as his laughter finally dies off and shrugs. “We’ll be fine, Eddie Spaghetti, trust me.” Eddie nods, even though he doesn’t really want to, but he knows he can trust Richie. Richie won’t let anything happen to him.

He laces their fingers together, momentarily expecting Richie to pull away until Richie smiles at him, causing his stomach to flutter with butterflies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bit of a filler, sorry it's not that good. hope you guys liked the miniseries reference though!


	19. Chapter 19

_ Wednesday, June 29, 1994 _

“You’re gonna be so fucking destroyed, Eds.” Richie states, putting a coin into the slot of the arcade game he always plays, Street Fighter. Eddie prefers Pacman, or really any game other than Street Fighter, but he had gotten tired of Richie whining about being lonely playing it and had agree on one round. 

“No fucking way.” Richie laughs, selecting his character and leaning against the game as he waits for Eddie to select his own. “Uh, yeah fucking way. I’ve got the highest score here. I’ve been playing this game since I was literally thirteen, okay? That’s four years I’ve got under my belt, along with the eight inches-” Eddie glares at Richie. “Stop talking about your dick.” He states, finally selecting some random character and starting the game. “C’mon, Little Richie needs to be acknowledged.” 

“Oh, God. You named your penis?” Richie laughs again. “You didn’t?” Eddie shakes his head. “No, dumbass.” He sighs as Richie kills him and he loses. “Dammit.” He mutters, looking down and fiddling with his tokens. “Toldja.” Eddie doesn’t respond to Richie’s smugness and instead puts another coin in the slot. “Again.” He states.

“Also, there’s no way you’re eight inches, Richie.” Eddie states, selecting his character and watching the numbers on the screen counting down before the game starts again. “I’m bigger than your five inches.” Richie retorts, pressing his button to attack Eddie’s character quickly. Eddie tries to match his pace but fails, and dies again. “God fucking dammit.” He mutters, putting another token into the machine. “Fucking again.” Richie laughs and slips a coin in as well. “Just accept defeat.” He states. Eddie shakes his head. “Never.”

“I’m not five inches.” Richie scoffs, beginning to attack Eddie again. “Oh yeah? Then what’re you? Three?” Eddie rolls his eyes. “Six.” He mutters. Richie laughs, yet again. “It’s average!” Richie doesn’t respond, just continues to laugh. Eddie rolls his eyes, lets Richie kill him again, and then walks away from the machine, grabbing his tokens and taking them over to pacman.

Richie joins him after just a few minutes. “C’mon, Eds. Don’t be like that. I was just joking.” Eddie rolls his eyes but doesn’t respond. “Edsssssss. Don’t be maaaaaaad.” Eddie doesn’t eve look at him. “Eds, I swear to fucking God, if you don’t answer me right the fuck now, you’ll regret it.” Eddie finally turns to look up at Richie. “What?” He sighs out. Richie looks down at him, their gazes meeting. Eddie kind of wants to kiss Richie, but he of course doesn’t and instead sighs and turns away. “Stop being a dick.”

“That’ll be kinda hard, I mean, you are what you eat, right?” Both of the teens freeze. Eddie turns to face Richie, who looks just as alarmed as Eddie probably does. It seems kind of like Richie hadn’t even meant to make the joke. 

“Rich, are you…” Eddie doesn’t have to finish the question, because Richie just nods. He looks like he might cry. Eddie just sort of stares at him, because he’s at a loss for words. He drags Richie off to the bathroom, though, to give them a sense of privacy. And he doesn’t speak until he makes sure the stalls are empty followed by locking the door. When he walks back in front of Richie, it’s obvious he’s already beginning to cry. He’s sniffling, and there are tears streaming slowly down his face.

Eddie reaches up and wipes the tears away. “Please don’t hate me now.” Richie murmurs, sniffling again. He’s speaking to Eddie, but he’s not looking at the smaller boy. He’s looking at the dirty bathroom floor. Eddie doesn’t try to force him to look at him, though. 

“I don’t hate you, Rich. I don’t care if you’re gay. I mean, we literally kissed, and everything’s still okay.” Richie still doesn’t look at Eddie. “If it helps, I’m gay too.” Richie shakes his head. “Don’t.” Eddie looks at him, eyebrows furrowed. “What?” The lanky boy turns to face his friend, finally actually looking at Eddie. “Don’t, Eds.” Eddie still just stares at him, confused. “I don’t understand.” 

“Don’t just say that to make me feel better.” Eddie shakes his head and grabs Richie’s face again. “ _ No _ , you don’t understand. I am one hundred percent gay. I like boys too. I’m not trying to make you feel better. Well, I am, but I’m not coming out to you to try to make you feel better.” Richie laughs a little, still looking down at Eddie’s face. 

Suddenly, the magnet from New Years has come back. It’s pulling their faces closer, closer, until they’re only an inch apart. They move closer, so close that all Eddie would need to do is flinch and their lips would touch.

Someone knocks loudly on the door, causing the two boys to practically launch away from each other. “Open the goddamn door, have sex somewhere else!” The person yells through the door. Eddie sighs and walks over to open the door and letting the man in before leaving, followed by Richie. 

The ravenette goes back to Street Fighter, and Eddie goes back to Pacman, things suddenly a bit awkward between the two. Eddie knows that it’s because, as much as neither of the boys wants to acknowledge it, they just almost kissed. There’s tension between the two that neither want to talk about. So they just accept the awkwardness and the tension without complaint or attempts to make it go away.

💊💊💊

_ Monday, July 4, 1994 _

“So, fireworks with the friends tonight? And hopefully your old man?” Eddie looks up at his father and smiles. “Yeah, that was the plan. We were going to watch the fireworks at the park tonight.” Frank nods, wordlessly handing Eddie the pancake syrup when Eddie attempts to grab it but isn’t able to. “Excited?” Eddie nods. “Yeah, I guess. It’ll probably be the same as every year.” He states as he places the syrup back on the table in front of him. “Sonia let you see the fireworks?” Eddie laughs and shakes his head. “God, no. I learned very quickly how to sneak out.” He states.

“Do you sneak out of here?” Eddie shakes his head. “Nah, there’s no need for it, duh.” Frank laughs. “Yeah, but there’s a need to sneak your friend in?” Eddie shrugs. “ _ He  _ did that. Not me.” He states, making Frank laugh again. “Why?” Eddie shrugs again. “I don’t even know. He’s just weird.” 

Then there’s silence. 

“Can I… tell you something?” Eddie asks, looking up at his dad. Frank stares at him for a second before nodding. “Yeah, sure.” Eddie fiddles with his fingers for a second, before blurting out what he’s needed to say to his dad for a while. “I’m gay.” Frank continues to stare for a moment, looking sort of taken aback, before clearing his throat and looking down at his plate. “Okay, gay, I’m dad.” He says, the dumbest dad joke ever, but it makes Eddie laugh anyway, and feel amazing. He feels so much better now that he’s told his dad and his dad not only accepted him, but he even made a dumb joke about it. And honestly, as dumb as it is, it was the best thing he could have done in response to Eddie coming out to him.

“Thanks, dad.” He says, truly meaning it. Frank nods. “No problem, Eddie. I told you, I’ll always support you, okay?” Eddie nods, looking back down at his plate too. “Okay.”

💊💊💊

Eddie comes out to the losers when they get to the park later that night, grouping everyone up into a circle and saying it as quietly as possible so people nearby don’t hear. Beverly and Richie obviously accept it, because they already knew, and everyone else does too, with a few questions, like ‘how did you know?’ and ‘okay, who do you like right now, then?’ Dumb questions that Eddie answers despite how stupid they are.

And then they watch the fireworks, and it’s amazing. Eddie sidles up next to Richie the whole time, fiddling with Richie’s long fingers in between their bodies, wanting nothing more than to just lean over and kiss the boy, a tender kiss full of yearning. But he doesn’t.

Richie comes over after the fireworks, watching a movie with Eddie and then showing obvious distaste when Eddie goes to pop a Xanax in the middle of it. Which quickly starts up a fight.

“What, Richie?” Eddie asks when Richie looks at him distastefully as he holds the bottle in his hands. Richie walks over, getting up from Eddie’s bed and taking two steps over to the shorter boy before snatching the bottle from him. “What the fuck?” Eddie asks, a bit sourly.

“I fucking hate these fucking pills.” Richie mutters, looking down at the bottle in his hand and using the other hand to begin peeling the label off, for some reason. “Richie, just give them back. They  _ help. _ ” Eddie says, taking a step toward Richie, hoping to be able to get the pills from him.

“No, they don’t help.” Richie states, continuing to peel the label away from the orange bottle. “Richie, I’m fine. Give me the bottle.” Eddie tries, going to take another step toward Richie, only for the trashmouth to take a step back. Eddie sighs and opts to stay in place rather than chase Richie around the room. Richie scoffs in response to Eddie’s statement.

“Jesus, Eddie, can’t you see that you’re killing yourself with these things?” Richie shakes the bottle of pills in his hand, just a bit. Just enough to make a small rattling sound. Eddie raises his hand, as though to grab them, but it quickly drops back down to his side. “Richie, I’m fine, okay? They help me. They make me better, because I’m sick.” Richie shakes his head, tears noticeable in his eyes. “You’re not sick. S-Stop fucking saying that!” Richie shouts, trying his best to hold the tears back. Eddie grabs the bottle of pills from Richie suddenly, taking advantage of the taller boy’s moment of weakness.  "Why?! It's the truth!" Richie shakes his head. "Eddie, please, put the bottle down, you're killing yourself." Eddie looks down at the orange bottle in his hand. "Why do you care?" Richie sighs, reaching up to push a few dark curls out of his face. "Because, Eddie. You mean just as much to me as that bottle of pills in your hand means to you. And I can't lose you."

“You have no right to do that, Richie! To take this away from me, this carefree feeling! You’re the one that got me hooked on this shit!” Eddie exclaims, bottle still in hand. Richie sighs. “Yes, I know. But I never knew just how much you would mean to me back then!” Eddie chokes back a sob as he shoves the bottle of pills into his- into Richie’s hoodie’s pocket. Because for some reason, one of Richie’s hoodies just showed up at his closet and he just went with it and started wearing it, even into the summer even though it’s far too hot for it.

“Well then just stop caring! If it’s so easy for me to stop caring about the pills then it’s just as easy for you to stop caring about me!” Richie shakes his head, a headache beginning to form. His eyes are tearing up, and he tries his best to hold the tears back. He can’t look weak in front of Eddie.

“It’s not that easy.” Eddie laughs sarcastically. “So you finally get it.” Richie shakes his head, reaching for Eddie, almost grabbing the hypochondriac’s shoulders until Eddie backs away with an angry, disgusted look on his face. “I do. I get it. Please, let me help you. I want to help. I’m not saying you just have to stop with no help, I want to help you!” Eddie’s the one to shake his head this time. “No, I need these. I don’t need help. I’m perfectly fine.” Richie sighs shakily, backing away from the shorter boy standing in front of him. His vision is blurring, his glasses doing nothing to clear it like they’re supposed to. It’s only a matter of time before the tears begin falling and he can’t hold them back anymore, no matter how hard he tries.

“Fine. I give up. Do what you want. Kill yourself with these things, for all I care. But I won’t be selling them to you, not anymore. Find another fucking dealer.” Richie states, before walking out the door. And all Eddie can do is watch, listen to him walk down the stairs and out the house. The front door slams shut as Richie leaves the house, soon followed by the sound of Richie’s old car driving away, into the night. And all Eddie can do is listen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angst, laughter, and three coming outs! good content??? for once???


	20. Chapter 20

_ July 20, 1994 _

The tension is thicker than ever before as Eddie meets the Losers at the Capitol to watch a movie and maybe play some arcade games after. All the Losers clearly notice is, but say nothing. Because all the attention is on Beverly coming out as lesbian and now dating Violet. Everyone had obviously supported the two.

“What about you two? Either of you find a lucky boy yet?” Yeah, there’s something else. Richie came out as well. Eddie and Richie shake their heads in sync. “Nope, sadly, I am still alone.” Eddie says. Richie nods, pointing at Eddie in agreement. “Same.”

“You two could…” Beverly begins with a smile. Eddie’s eyes widen and he shakes his head. “No, no, no. Never.” He states, ignoring the hurt look that crosses Richie’s face when he says that. Richie nods, though, despite the hurt. “Yeah, never.” Stan looks between the two, a look Eddie doesn’t like that much, and then leads them into the Capitol for their movie.

The movie is some cheesy romance, because the Losers left the job of choosing the movie up to Ben, so there they are, watching this. Eddie can’t help but roll his eyes at every single sappy scene, which is a tone. And don’t get him wrong, sure, he would love to have a boyfriend and be all sappy and romantic with him, but he also doesn’t. He wants someone like a best friend. Someone like, well, Richie.

_ No, no.  _ He shakes the thought from his head. He  _ doesn’t  _ like Richie. Even though he frequently thinks about kissing-

_ NO _ .

He physically shakes his head, ridding the thoughts, and then reaches over to the bowl of popcorn Richie’s holding (That he’s absolutely demolished even though they’re only thirty minutes into the movie) and grabs a huge handful. Richie swats at his hand but smiles at him.

Once he’s shoved the whole hand of popcorn into his mouth and chewed it-with only  _ some _ difficulty-he reaches over to grab his blue raspberry slushie out of his cup holder. Richie leans over right as he’s about to take a sip of it.    


“Whatcha got there, Eds?” Eddie rolls his eyes, takes a sip of the slushie, and then turns to Richie. “A slushie, fuckwad.” Richie laughs quietly. “Can I have some?” He asks, and Eddie wants to say  _ fuck no, do you know how many germs we could share? _ but he doesn’t, because he can’t say no to Richie. So he sighs and hands the slushie over to Richie.

Richie takes it happily and slurps it loudly until half of the cup is gone and his mouth is stained blue. Then he hands it back to Eddie, who glares at him. “Really, jerkface? You drank it all!” Richie laughs again. “Then I guess you’ll just have to get more.” Eddie shoves the drink back at Richie. “Might as well have it now.” He mutters, sounding angrier than he really is, then walking out of the theater to buy another slushie.

As he’s buying another, someone walks over and places a hand on his shoulder. He turns to face them, smiling up at them when he sees it’s Richie. “Dude, you’re not  _ actually _ mad at me now, are you?” Eddie laughs and shakes his head, taking the blue raspberry slushie he just bought from the cashier with a smile and a  _ thank you _ , as he was taught. Manners, Eddie Bear. Remember, always have manners.

“No, I’m not mad, idiot. C’mon, let’s go back.” Eddie says, turning back when Richie grabs his arm as he tries to walk back to the theater. He stands and looks up at the ravenette expectantly for a minute until Richie drags him into the boy’s bathroom. 

“Dude, you’re gonna get bathroom germs in my fucking slushie!” Eddie shouts, but Richie doesn’t respond. He takes Eddie’s slushie from his hands, sets it on the counter next to the sink, and then bends down and kisses him, right on the lips, right in the middle of the bathroom. Eddie doesn’t fight it, he lets it happen, and then he even melts into it after a minute. He has to bend his neck  _ a lot _ , because Richie is a fucking giraffe, but he doesn’t care.

Because he’s kissing Richie Tozier, and it feels  _ right _ .

This isn’t like their kiss on New Years, sloppy and rushed and  _ wrong _ . This is gentle and slow and right, it’s the opposite of the kiss on New Years. 

And then the door opens.

The two boys practically launch away from each other, turning to face the poor Capitol worker who had to walk in on this. The guy is just staring at them, not saying a word. They don’t say anything either. Richie runs out, followed by Eddie, who only remembers to grab his slushie on the way out because he has to walk right past it and it catches his eye.

The rest of the movie is awkward and silent between the two, because they yet again refuse to discuss the kiss. They refuse to discuss their attraction to each other. And it’s fucking up their friendship. The others are starting to notice, they’re starting to ask questions, they’re starting to  _ look _ . They’re starting to  _ wonder _ .

Eddie knows they can’t keep up whatever the hell this is much longer.

So after the movie, he corners Richie, as much as he doesn’t want to. And Richie tries to get away, but Eddie doesn’t let him. Because that kiss on New Years is scratching his brain. And so is the almost kiss in the bathroom. And then Richie saying that he  _ cares about Eddie _ , and the bathroom kiss today. It’s all too much for him to continue to keep silent about. He can’t keep pretending there’s nothing between them.

“Whats up, Eds?” Richie asks, clearly trying not to raise suspicion, but it’s too late for that because the others are all staring at the two, because Eddie’s got Richie  _ literally  _ backed up against a wall.

“We. Need. To. Talk.” Eddie states, slow and steady, each word stated clearly so Richie really gets it through his thick skull that this can’t keep going anymore. And then he walks away, in the direction of the quarry, and he hopes Richie follows.

Richie does, and they end up sitting at the edge of the quarry in silence as Richie lights up a cigarette, disregarding Eddie’s fake asthma. “How did you know I was, I guess,  _ addicted  _ to xanax?” Eddie asks Richie, breaking the silence and plunging a knife into the thick tension between the two that being alone has caused. They’re less tense when they’re with others, in a crowded place or with their friends or whatever. But alone? Well, when they’re alone the only person they have to talk to is the other, the only face they have to look at is the one next to them or across from them, so they have to face the reality of things. They have to realize they’ve fucked their friendship, and it’s beyond repair at this point. And it all started at New Years.

“Because I was the one that dealt her the shit. I needed money before you came along, Eds.” Eddie looks over at Richie as the lanky boy blows a breathe of bitter smelling smoke out of his mouth. “Why?” Richie shrugs. “My family has money problems. Not enough money, too many bills. Mom and dad are good, but lacking in the money field.” Eddie looks down at the water below, grabbing a rock from beside him and dropping it in. He watches the ripples until their disappear before responding. “Oh.” He murmurs in response. Richie chuckles and throws his cigarette into the water. “Yeah, ‘oh.’ Don’t treat me differently now, I’m still the same old Richie.” He states.

“I know that. I’m not gonna treat you like you’re a weirdo or something, even though you are.” Eddie states, smiling at Richie, who laughs. “Wow, Eds. I’m hurt.” Eddie rolls his eyes. “Get over it.”

There’s silence again. “If you’re done dealing to me, are you still going to deal?” Richie thinks for a second. “Only to the popular kids. They’re the only ones that I could never get attached to. Except Julie. She doesn’t do drugs, though, luckily.” Richie states. “Do  _ you  _ do drugs?” Richie frowns and shakes his head. “Not a chance.”

“What did we need to talk about?” Richie asks, adjusting his large glasses. “The tension, what we are. We’ve kissed twice, almost kissed a few times too, and you said you cared about me. I know that could’ve been in a friend way, but I feel like it wasn’t.” Richie sighs.


	21. Chapter 21

_ July 20, 1994 _

“No, it wasn’t in a friend way.” Richie mutters, pulling another cigarette out of his pocket much to Eddie’s distaste. But Eddie doesn’t say anything about it. This is stressful for him too, and he wishes he had his Xanax with him so he could take one. 

“I like you, like, in a  _ crush  _ way.” Richie says after a second. Eddie doesn’t speak, he just stares at Richie. He clears his throat awkwardly and looks away again, looking down at his feet, where they’re swinging above the water. “I like you, too. In a crush way.” Eddie states, still not looking at Richie. He’s caught by surprise when Richie grabs his face gently in his hand and pulls Eddie into another kiss. But regardless of the moment of surprise, he allows himself to melt into it. 

“Okay, listen, we need to stop kissing and then never saying anything about it.” He states once they’ve pulled away, savoring the flavors of blue raspberry slushie and cigarettes that was resting in Richie’s mouth and now rest in his own as well. He never thought those flavors would mix together well, but they mix together better than anything else he’s ever tasted. 

Richie laughs and throws his second cigarette away, only halfway smoked. “Okay, then what does this make us? What do we talk about here? We kissed, now what?” Eddie thinks. “I think... we should go on a date.” Richie’s surprised. He never expected Eddie, who grew up in this huge homophobic household and has probably been in denial of his sexuality his whole life, to ask a boy on a public date.

So Richie just looks at him. He doesn’t say anything, he just looks, sort of expecting Eddie to tell him it was a joke and he didn’t actually mean it. But he doesn’t.

“What are you looking at?” Richie doesn’t respond, so Eddie reaches over and flicks him in the forehead. “Earth to Trashmouth.” Richie laughs and swats Eddie’s hand away from his face. “What are you fucking staring at?” Eddie asks again. “Your amazing face.” Eddie rolls his eyes at Richie’s response. “It’s not amazing.” 

“Dude, what are you talking about? It’s so cute! Of course it’s amazing!” Eddie scowls at Richie. “I’m not fucking cute!” He shouts. Richie reaches over and pinches Eddie’s cheek. “Cute, cute, cute!” He squeals, like a little girl petting a puppy or something. Eddie slaps his hand away and scowls even harder, if that was possible. “Nope, I take it back. No date.” That seems to whip Richie into shape, because he freezes as soon as the words leave Eddie’s mouth.

“No, no, no, no, no. Pleeeaaaase Eds. I’m sorryyyyyyy.” Eddie resists smiling as Richie begs, trying his best to keep the scowl on his face. “Please, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Eddie lets Richie whine for a few minutes until he finally breaks. “Shut the fuck up, we’re still going on a date. Tomorrow, dinner. You pick the place, but it actually has to be good or I will never go on another date with you.” Richie salutes, a smile now taking over his face. “Ey, ey, captain Eduardo!” He says in a shitty pirates voice. 

“God, shut up.” Eddie mutters, standing and rolling his eyes at Richie’s dumb impression. “I’m going home. See you at dinner tomorrow.” He states. Richie stands and runs to join him as he begins walking away, his tacky Hawaiian shirt blowing out around him until he slows to a walk beside Eddie. “Now, what kind of date would I be if I didn’t walk you home?” Eddie rolls his eyes yet again. “We’re not on a date yet, dumbass.” 

“Well, we could’ve counted the movie theater as a date.” Eddie laughs dryly. “Yeah, cuz a worker walking in on us making out is  _ so romantic _ .” He states followed by another dry laugh. “Not every date is a winner! Usually a first date isn’t.” Eddie shakes his head. “No, today is not a date.” He states, slapping Richie playfully in the arm when he tries to ask again. Richie goes silent for a few minutes after that.

“Y’know, my first date with your mom wasn’t exactly a  _ winner _ .” He says, making Eddie scowl at him again. “Don’t joke about my mom, asshat! She’s abusive.” Richie laughs. “Maybe I’m into that.” Eddie sighs and looks up at Richie, who’s looking down at him with  _ the most serious look on the planet _ . “If you’re into that I’m dumping you before we’ve even started dating.” Eddie states, also trying to look serious. Richie laughs loudly. 

“Okay, then it’s a good thing I’m  _ not  _ into that. But I am into that Kaspbrak ass, all forms of it.” Richie says, enunciating the statement by slapping Eddie on the butt. Eddie rolls his eyes again. “I wonder how many more times you can roll your eyes at me before they roll back in your head.” Richie mutters, just loud enough so Eddie can hear it.

Eddie rolls his eyes again and hits Richie playfully in the shoulder.

💊💊💊

Once Eddie’s gotten home, he says goodbye to Richie and walks inside the house. He stands in the living room window once he’s inside, flipping Richie off until he finally walks away after five minutes of Eddie just standing there.

“So, you and Richie?” Frank asks as Eddie untangles himself from the curtains and turns to face where he’s sitting on the couch and browsing through the channels on the TV. Eddie shrugs and plops down next to Frank, snatching the remote from him and browsing himself. “Dunno. We’re going on a dinner date tomorrow.” He states, picking a random channel and going with it, but not even watching the dumb nature documentary that plays. 

“So I’ll be alone all day tomorrow?” Eddie shakes his head. “Nah, I’ll be here until the date.” The phone rings then, and Eddie stands to grab it. 

“Hello?” He asks into the phone, leaning against the wall and watching his dad pick a different channel on the TV. “Hey, Eddie. It’s Bev.” Eddie smiles, even though Beverly can’t see him. “Heya, Bev. What’s up?” He asks, voice now less formal than it usually is when he talks to people on the phone. “I was thinking we could do a sort of party thing tomorrow? As like, a goodbye summer party? Y’know, one last fun hangout of just the Losers before school again?” Eddie thinks on it for a second.

“School isn’t starting for a month.” There’s a sigh, followed by a beat of silence. “Listen, I’ve got alcohol and weed. Yes or no?” Eddie looks over at Frank to make sure he hadn’t somehow heard that through the phone. “Yes, sleepover?” 

“Yeah.” Beverly responds. “‘Kay, seeya then.”


	22. Chapter 22

_ July 21, 1994 _

Eddie spends the whole day pacing in his room, trying on one outfit and then deciding it’s not good enough for the date, only to put on one he tried on just ten minutes ago.

Eventually, when there’s a knock on the door, he just goes with whatever the hell he’s wearing, which is a red polo shirt and jeans, even though it’s kind of too hot for jeans still, because the only shorts he owns are all in the laundry except the short shorts. And while Eddie’s sure Richie would enjoy the short shorts, they’re not good for dates.

By the time Eddie makes it downstairs, which takes a minute because he has to throw on his worn white sneakers and he has to fiddle with his hair a bit-as it’s in that awkward faze of too long to comb due to curls, and too short to be able to push out of Eddie’s face successfully-Richie’s already inside and talking to Frank. 

“Now, I  _ need  _ you to understand that if you hurt Eddie in  _ any  _ way, I will kill you.” Frank states as Eddie joins Richie. “Dad, c’mon!” Eddie protests, but Frank continues. “No, no. He needs to  _ understand _ .” Eddie huffs. “You need to treat him better than you’ve treated anyone! And no sex!” Frank states. Eddie takes the chance while Frank’s chewing Richie out to eye the lanky boy. He’s wearing a regular old black shirt, no band logo or random design in sight, and another tacky Hawaiian shirt, a white one with blue palm trees, and a pair of jeans. The only pair of jeans Eddie’s seen Richie wear without rips. Eddie didn’t think he owned a pair of jeans without rips in them.

Well, upon closer inspection, they had rips in them at one point in time, but they were patched up. The rips were probably just so small that Eddie wasn’t able to really tell they were ever there. And it’s pretty obvious that Richie was the one who did them, as it’s a pretty messy fix. But Eddie thinks it’s cute, the image of Richie sitting on his bed and sewing his jeans up for God knows how long just so he could look nice on a date with Eddie.

Eddie’s attention is brought away from the rips in Richie’s jeans by Frank asking if Richie understood everything he just said. Richie nods and speaks a loud, confident “Yes, sir.” And then Frank finally lets them go.

Richie opens the passenger door for Eddie, like a true gentleman, which Eddie rolls his eyes to but thinks it’s cute. And he even sticks a mixtape in of all songs that Eddie’s said he listens to or likes, or songs by artists he likes. 

“Did you fix your jeans yourself?” Is the first thing Eddie asks once they’re on the road to wherever Richie’s picked out. Richie nods shyly, a bit of a blush dusting his cheeks. He’s obviously embarrassed that it’s so obvious he did it.

“Does it look bad? I’m not very good at sewing but mom was busy.” Eddie shakes his head, smiling at the Queen song playing. Eddie loves Queen, Richie does too. He thinks it’s the only artist the both of them enjoy. 

“It’s a little messy, but I think it’s cute that you just decided that instead of having ripped jeans for our first date, you sat there and you figured it out. If it makes you feel any better, I don’t know how to sew either.” Richie blushes harder at Eddie calling him  _ cute _ . “So, it doesn’t look like garbage?” Eddie shakes his head again and turns to face Richie, where he’s driving. “No, Rich. They look fine. I wouldn’t have even cared if they were ripped. I know you don’t have a lot of money, so you can’t afford new jeans when yours rip.”

Richie looks over at Eddie for a second with a smile before looking back up at the road. Eddie doesn’t know what else to say in the moment. He’s never been good at sappy stuff, but he doesn’t want to say something else and ruin the nice, happy feeling in the car.

So the two sit in a comfortable, happy silence for a second, just listening to the songs on the tape Richie made specially for this date.

“You put so much effort into this, I feel kinda like I didn’t put enough.” Richie looks over at Eddie again, confused. “What are you talking about?” He asks, looking back at the road as he waits for Eddie to speak. “I mean, you sewed your jeans even though you don’t know how, you made a  _ mixtape _ for this date, and you picked out somewhere to eat. All I did was come along.” Richie glances over at Eddie, as though asking  _ are you serious _ ?

“Dude, you literally asked me out. I made the mixtape before this, I just didn’t know when to give it to you. I needed a pair of jeans without holes anyway. You literally made me do all the things I wanted to do but I kept procrastinating.” Eddie sighs. “Okay, fine. You win.” He states, plunging the two into another comfortable silence save for the music.

Eddie only speaks again as he watches the  _ You’re now leaving Derry  _ sign pass their car. He looks over at Richie, who’s glancing at him occasionally with a smile on his face. “Where the hell are you taking me?” Eddie asks. Richie chuckles a little. “It’s a surprise.” Richie states cockily. Eddie rolls his eyes. Richie laughs again. “Trust me, you’re gonna like it. Only like, ten more minutes in the car, and then we’ll be there. This place is better than  _ anywhere  _ in Derry.”

Eddie watches curiously out the window as they drive, soon pulling into a McDonalds. “Nope. No, I’m fucking hitchiking back since you think  _ this  _ is better than Derry.” Eddie states, trying to open the car door only for Richie to lock it. “I’m just fucking with you.” Richie states, pulling out of the McDonalds parking lot and driving across the street to some diner called the Two Whales Diner.

“Two Whales?” Eddie asks, reading out the sign as Richie switches off the car. “Yeah, my dad used to take me here all the time. It’s been a while cuz it’s super expensive.” Eddie looks over at Richie. “Then how can you afford it? Like, yourself. Cuz I was gonna pay for myself-” Richie cuts Eddie off. “Nope, I’m paying. End of story. Let’s go.”

Eddie sighs and follows Richie out of the car and into the diner. A nice woman leads them to a booth and asks right off the bat what they want to drink. Eddie orders a coke and Richie gets a vanilla milkshake.

“Oh my God, Richie Tozier? Is that you?” Richie looks up as he hears his name, and Eddie looks over too. An older looking woman with sandy blonde hair pulled into a tight bun and kind eyes walks over. Her name tag says Kaitlyn.

“Yeah, that’s me.” Richie says, smiling at the woman. She smiles back. “It’s been so long! Last time I saw you, you were maybe up to here on me.” She says, holding her hand near her waist. “I used to change your diapers, you know! Your parents and I were good friends.” Richie blushes, embarrassed, and glances over at Eddie. “Yeah, uh, yeah.” Kaitlyn laughs. “Well, it’s nice to see you again. Who’s this?” She asks, looking over at Eddie.

“I’m Eddie Kaspbrak.” He says quietly, pushing a curl out of his face. “Nice to meet you Eddie. I’m Kaitlyn.” She says, reaching over and shaking Eddie’s hand. He smiles awkwardly at her. “Are you two on a date?” She asks, looking between the two. Eddie clears his throat awkwardly, staring at Richie, who nods. “Yeah, we are.” Kaitlyn smiles wider. “That’s cute!” Someone calls her name, causing her to look away. “Well, I’ve got to go. It was nice seeing you, Richie. Enjoy your date!” She says before walking away.

Their waitress comes over just a moment later, handing them their drinks. “Do you guys know what you want?” Richie nods, and so does Eddie. “Yeah, uh, can I have a burger?” Richie asks, looking down at the menu. “Yeah, you get two sides.” She states, writing it down. “French fries and, uh, mac and cheese.” She writes down his sides and then looks over at Eddie, who gets chicken strips and the same sides as Richie.

They talk until their food comes, and then after just a few bites Eddie’s telling Richie that he was right, this place is so much better than anything he’s ever had in Derry. And Richie smiles at him, even with ketchup smeared all over his face. “Toldja.” He states.

And then the check comes, and Richie basically pales at it, but he doesn’t let Eddie even offer a dollar, no matter how much he begs for him to. 

But Kaitlyn comes over as Richie is counting out  _ literal change  _ so he can reach the total, and she grabs the check. “This one’s on me, Rich. Just promise to come back soon.” She states, tucking the check into her apron. Richie looks up at her, already beginning to shove money back into his wallet. “If you guys need help with money, you can always ask.” She states, bending down and writing something on a napkin before handing it to Richie. “No strings attached. I was friends with Maggie and Wentworth in high school, they were my best friends. You look so much like your mom, by the way.” She turns to Eddie. “You look exactly like Frank.” She states before walking away.

The teens look at each other. “That was fucking weird.” Eddie mutters. “I don’t think so, if she knew my parents in high school she probably knew yours, too.” Eddie shrugs. “Whatever. I don’t think I look like my dad.” He states, standing from the booth as Richie slips out as well. “Lets just go hang out at Bev’s, even though we’re gonna be early.” Richie grabs his milkshake, the second one he bought, this one to go. “Yeah, sure.” Eddie snatches it from Richie’s hands and takes a sip of it, even though he doesn’t really like vanilla milkshakes.

“Dude, that’s mine!” Richie states, beginning to lead Eddie out of the diner. Eddie rolls his eyes and takes another sip. “You stole my slushie at the movies.” He states. “Yeah, but I bought you another one!” Richie shouts, getting into the car and snatching the milkshake from Eddie as he does too. “Fuck off.” Eddie mutters, turning on the mixtape again as soon as the car’s turned on. “Nah.” Richie states, placing the milkshake in the cupholder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i stole the idea for the diner and the name of it from life is strange so creds to the game for this chapter


	23. Chapter 23

_ July 21, 1994 _

Eddie and Richie are the first to arrive at Bev’s aunt’s house, which has three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and a pool. So yeah, it’s a pretty nice house.

“Damn, girl. Your aunt’s got money!” Richie states, whistling as he runs his hands along a painting on the wall of the entryway. “You’ve got money, too.” Bev says. Richie doesn’t say anything in response. The three hang out for a bit until the others show up one by one, first Bill, then Stan, Violet and Mike, Ben, Julie, and then finally Patty. Beverly’s aunt, Lily, isn’t supposed to be home all night, so Beverly pulls out the alcohol and the weed and the cigarettes, as well as the snacks and soda.

They get started drinking pretty quickly, and before the Losers know it they’ve already gone through a whole bottle of vodka, because apparently a bottle doesn’t go that far when there’s ten teenagers drinking it. And it goes okay, at first, until they start getting tipsy and drunk. Except Richie. Somehow he doesn’t even get tipsy by the time the sun’s going down.

There’s something playing on the TV, but Eddie has no idea what it is because he isn’t playing any attention to it at all. He’s too busy drinking and eating chips. And…. getting them everywhere.

And he doesn’t know quite when it happened, but one second he’s taking a shot, and the next black spots are beginning to cloud his vision and his limbs begin feeling limp. Everything was still going on around him, however, and he tried his best to hold the shot glass in his hand steadily, so as not to call attention to whatever the fuck was happening.

It was all for nothing, however, when Eddie feels the glass slip from his fingers, followed by the sound of it shattering on the hardwood floor. He could sense everyone’s stares, could vaguely see their concerned faces as they run their hands in front of his face. They’re asking him how many fingers they’re holding up, asking him if he’s okay. He feels disconnected from his body, disconnected from everything going. He sees their mouths moving but can’t hear what they’re saying.

Then everything goes completely black.

~~~

“Holy shit, Eds?! Oh my God.” Richie’s shaking Eddie, trying to wake the smaller boy up, but nothing’s happening. He knows what’s happening, knows this is happening because Eddie wasn’t careful and drank after taking too many Xanax’s. Richie guesses he hadn’t been following the dose that it said on the bottle, but either way you really weren’t supposed to drink with those pills.

“Guys, what do we do?” He asks, turning to the rest of the Losers who are just as panicked as he is. Bev is pacing the room, running a hand through her short hair continuously, though there really isn’t that much hair to run it through. Everyone else is crowded around him, though, Beverly is the only one not only a few inches away from him. 

“What’s even going on? He didn’t drink that much, he couldn’t have blacked out.” Ben states. Richie shrugs, eyes wide. “I don’t fucking know! We need to figure out what to do though.” He states, talking fast and erratically, because he’s panicking, fucking panicking. He doesn’t know what to do, this is all happening so fast and there’s so much going on, it’s chaos. Everyone’s talking over one another, and now…

Well, now Eddie’s puking all over Richie’s jeans.

Richie grimaces. “Ugh, now he’s fucking puking on me.” He gags, but doesn’t try to push Eddie away because as gross as it is, that’s the least of their problems right now. “We need to call an ambulance.” Mike states. Richie looks up at the boy.  _ Why hadn’t he thought of that?!  _

“We d-d-duh-definitely need to get him to a h-hospital.” Bill stutters out. Richie bites back a  _ no shit, Sherlock _ , because that really won’t help right now. “But we can’t afford an ambulance.” Richie states instead of making the remark. “I’ll just… we can just pile into my car, as many of us can fit, and get him to the hospital. Everyone else, I don’t fucking know, figure out your own way there or something, I don’t know.” Richie states, already beginning to pick Eddie up.

The others don’t fight him, because that’s actually the best idea they have right now, so Eddie ends up in the backseat, laying on Bill, Beverly, and Mike’s laps while Richie takes the driver’s seat and Patty ends up in the passenger’s seat, leaving Stan and Ben to find their own way to the hospital. It’s fine, though. They just need to fucking hurry.

Richie doesn’t hesitate to speed, going  _ far  _ past the speed limit, and no one else in the car opposes. Luckily they don’t run into any police, and they make it to the hospital in record time.

The lanky ravenette carries Eddie in, vomit covered jeans and all, drawing many eyes in the waiting room, but he doesn’t care.

Before he knows it Eddie is being dragged away from him and a nurse is guiding all the other teens to the waiting area, handing Richie a cup of water, and going back to her seat. Richie sighs, takes a sip of the water, and waits in the uncomfortable plastic waiting chair.

💊💊💊

Richie wakes up to someone shaking his shoulder. He hadn’t even realized he fell asleep. He sits up, reaching under his glasses to wipe the sleep from his eyes, and looks at the person that woke him up. It was Ben, who had been sitting on one side of Richie. There was a doctor, stood in front of all the teens, he was waiting for Richie to get fully woken up before saying anything.

Once the doctor seems to have decided Richie’s awake, or at least awake enough, he speaks. “Your friend, you brought in. He’s okay. Not dead. He had high amounts of-” 

“Xanax and alcohol in his system.” Richie mutters, momentarily cutting the doctor off. The doctor-middle aged, greying brown hair, kind green eyes-just stares at Richie. He looks a bit surprised that Richie knew that. “Yes, and those two, they don’t mix well. Like I said, he’s alive, but he is in a coma…” After that the doctor’s words seem to fade out.

A coma. Eddie was in a coma.


	24. Chapter 24

_ July 21, 1994 _

The doctor lets two people go visit Eddie, and that ends up to be (of course) Richie, as well as Bill. Richie takes the seat next to Eddie and Bill takes the seat next to the window, peeking out the curtains for a second and then  _ actually  _ sitting down. 

“Do you think he can hear us?” Richie asks as he gently takes Eddie’s hand in his own. It’s so weird not to feel Eddie lace their fingers together as he usually does. “I think he c-can.” Bill responds, eyeing Richie in all his glory. He’s still covered in vomit and smells like alcohol, but he refuses to leave the hospital, even just to shower and change. It’s mostly because he doesn’t want to leave Eddie, but it’s also because his parents would  _ kill _ him if he came home smelling like alcohol and weed and covered in vomit.

“You should g-g-g-go change, dude. And sh-shuh-shuh-shower. And s-s-sleep.” Richie shakes his head. “I can’t leave him.” Bill sighs, but he doesn’t respond. A nurse comes in a few minutes later, telling them that one of them has to leave so Frank can come in. Bill glances at Richie, but leaves without trying to convince him to be the one to leave.

As soon as Frank’s inside the room, he’s telling Richie to go home and shower. “I can’t. My parents will  _ kill  _ me. And what if something happens while I’m gone?” He asks, looking at the heart monitor, where the line is going in a steady rhythm of up and down. But what if when he comes back, it’s not going up and down anymore? What if when he comes back, Eddie’s oxygen mask isn’t fogging up everytime he takes a breath? What if, what if, what if.

“He’ll be okay, Richie. You can use our shower, because I know that by now you’ve got at  _ least _ three outfits sitting in Eddie’s closet. Just lock up when you’re done.” Frank offers, pulling his keys out of his pocket and holding them up for Richie to see. Richie sighs and stands, letting Eddie’s limp hand fall from his and walking towards Frank to grab the keys. “Thanks, Mr. K.” He mutters as he takes the keys and exits the room. “You’re welcome, Richie.” Frank says, the last thing Richie hears from hospital room 207 before he shuts the door.

Richie walks down the hallway, drawing stares from nurses, patients, and others due to the state he’s in. He doesn’t even let it affect him, though. He’s too worried about getting a shower and changing as quickly as possible so he can get back here to be back with Eddie as soon as possible.

He waves tiredly to the Losers as he passes them, only a few of them wave back as the others are racked out. When he gets to his car, the mixtape for his and Eddie’s date begins playing. He almost turns it off, but he doesn’t. He just listens to the music, and he even begins to cry after a bit.

💊💊💊

Richie showers quickly when he gets to the Kaspbrak house, only spending just enough time to get the odor off him. And then he grabs the first clothes he sees out of Eddie’s closet, which end up being a hoodie and a pair of sweatpants. The sweatpants aren’t his and the hoodie is, but the sweatpants fit him even though they aren’t his, so he wears them. The hoodie is the one Eddie was wearing during their fight not too long ago. It’s a black hoodie with a turtle design on it. The bottle of Xanax is still in there. 

Richie takes the bottle out and walks downstairs and out of the house, making sure to lock the door behind him as Frank had told him. Then he puts the bottle right next to his tire, gets in his car, and drives over the bottle about five times before finally leaving the driveway and going to the hospital again.

The nurse allows him to go to Eddie’s room, meaning no one else other than Frank is in there with him. When Richie enters the room, he gives Frank his keys back, and then takes his seat where it was before. 

💊💊💊

Richie’s shaken awake abruptly. He lifts his head from the scratchy hospital seats and looks up at Frank, who’s holding two cups of coffee. “I went to the cafeteria, figured you’d be hungry. I didn’t know what you’d like, so I just guessed?” He says, handing the coffee to Richie and then grabbing a styrofoam container from the bedside table. “I hope you’re not vegetarian.” Frank says, handing the container to Richie. The ravenette shakes his head and takes a sip of the coffee that was handed to him. It’s bitter, clearly just regular black coffee, but Richie’s never liked any kind of coffee. He prefers energy drinks.

“Thanks.” He says anyway and opens the container to see what Frank brought him. It’s a few pieces of pepperoni pizza. “I thought you’d like it, I mean, pepperoni is a pretty universal food.” Richie nods. “Yeah, I’m good with it.” He says, placing the container in his lap and taking a piece of pizza out. He’s currently only got one hand operational, as the other is still locked into Eddie’s. And he’s not moving it anytime soon.

“So, mind explaining to me how Eddie had drugs in his system? Alcohol is to be expected, and weed, but  _ actual _ drugs? Xanax?” Richie sighs. “It’s… sort of a long story.” He responds. Frank laughs a little and glances at Eddie. “We’ve got time, Rich.”

Richie sighs again before explaining everything, from his parents being low on money to dealing to Sonia at first, and then when she was put into jail, dealing to Eddie, and finally even including their fight about the drugs. 

“I never expected to get close to him at the beginning of this. I just needed money. And then I was somehow dragged into being his friend. And I still dealt to him, until our fight, because I caught feelings for him, and then he said he wouldn’t stop taking the pills. So I told him I wouldn’t deal to him anymore, hoping that would get him to stop taking them. I guess not, though.” He mutters, taking another bite of pizza. 

“I’m sorry.” Richie follows up with when he sees the look on Frank’s face. Frank sighs. “I’m not mad. People make mistakes. You know there are better ways to make money though, right?” Richie shrugs, looking away from Frank. “I’ve tried to get a job at basically every place in Derry and they’ve all turned me away.” He states, reaching up with a greasy finger to push his glasses back up his face.

“If I could get you a job, would you stop?” Richie nods without hesitation. “Obviously. I hate dealing.” Frank sighs again and eyes Richie for a second. “Okay, I’ll see what I can do. No more dealing.” Richie nods, causing his glasses to slide right back down his face. “No more dealing.” He states.


	25. Chapter 25

_ August 22, 1994 _

Richie walks through the school hallways, feeling like a zombie. That’s how he’s felt ever since Eddie entered the coma, like a zombie. This is even worse than when Cora died. 

Today is the first day of Richie’s junior year at Hawkins High School. It would’ve been Eddie’s too, if it weren’t for Richie. Yeah, Richie’s started blaming himself. But for good fucking reason. If he had never gotten into drug dealing, he wouldn’t have met Eddie, or maybe he would have. But either way, Eddie wouldn’t be in a coma right now if Richie hadn’t ever started dealing.

Speaking of dealing, he’s stopped completely. Gave all his stock except his weed to other dealers and then got a job at the Capitol, serving over buttered popcorn and boxes of candy that aren’t even halfway filled to snobby teenagers and greasy little kids every day after school, and all day on Saturdays. He barely gets any time to spend with Eddie, but at least he’s helping his mom and dad. And he gets every Sunday off, so he alternates. One Sunday goes towards Eddie, the next towards the Losers, and then it’s back to Eddie. He spends time with family when everyone’s off work and available, which isn’t often, but happens sometimes.

“H-Hey Rich.” Richie looks over at Bill as he speaks to him. “Hi, Bill.” The two stand in the hallway for a second, just staring at each other. “L-Luh-Listen, uh, if you e-ever need to t-t-t-tuh-talk, I’m here. We’re all sad about E-Eh-Eddie, but you were the closest to him s-suh-suh-so I’m sure it hit you the huh-hardest.” Richie blinks at Bill and then sighs. “Thanks, Bill. But don’t stutter his name. You know he hates that.” He states before walking off to his locker. Bill just stares after him, not letting the sudden attitude get to him because he knows Richie’s going through a lot right now so he’s going to be a bit frustrated at everyone. At least Richie knows Bill is there if he needs anything.

Richie’s sluggish throughout the day, avoiding the Losers, going to the roof during lunch like old times instead of the cafeteria. He knows he’s being a dick, but he’s just really not in the mood to talk to the friends that  _ Eddie _ helped him get. He’s not in the mood to go down to the cafeteria and sit next to the spot that he knows is going to be empty because it was always Eddie’s. He’s just not in the mood to even be at school.

He kinda just wants to die without Eddie.

Eddie was the one that kept him here this long. Without Eddie, Richie honestly doesn’t know if he’d still be here, on earth. He doesn’t know if he wouldn’t have jumped off this roof or took too many of his own pills by now. 

Eddie saved him, and now Eddie’s basically gone. Alive, but unconscious. And there’s no guarantee he’ll live. The doctors say he will, say he’ll probably wake up in a month or two, maybe earlier, but there’s no guarantee. There never is. There’s always that  _ chance _ .

Richie sighs, stands, walks over to the edge of the rooftop. There’s not a high chance of that actually killing him, it’s more likely to just break some bones, maybe paralyze him if he lands in the right spot. But there’s still that  _ chance _ .

Richie wants to take that chance, just step off the roof and hope he lands just the right way to die. But he doesn’t. He backs away, and he doesn’t stop backing away until he’s in the middle of the roof, away from the edge. It’s then that he sits, staring off at the treetops swaying in the wind. 

He doesn’t want to die, not when there’s still the  _ chance _ of Eddie living. Until Eddie’s gone, Richie will live on, no matter how badly it hurts without Eddie. And even if Eddie wasn’t there, Richie knows how badly it hurts to lose someone to suicide, or just lose someone at all. He couldn’t do that to his friends, his family, to everyone close to him. Frank, even. If Eddie were to die, that would hurt Frank terribly, Richie couldn’t imagine what would happen if Richie, Eddie’s boyfriend, killed himself not long after, even if Frank isn’t that close to him.

So Richie stays away from the edge of the roof until the bell announcing the end of lunch rings throughout the building, and then he goes down to his next class of the day, tired and slow, but alive.

💊💊💊

_ December 24, 1994 _

Richie knows he should be spending today with family, or the Losers, not at the hospital with his comatose boyfriend. But he doesn’t want to. He wants to spend the day with Eddie, even though breaking the news of that to his parents had made them visibly sad, and telling the Losers that had worried them. 

Richie’s stopped ignoring the Losers at school, but he’s still isolated himself, stopped spending time with them outside of school. He only spends time with Eddie when he’s got a free day. He doesn’t spend time with his family anymore. If he’s not at school or work, he’s at the hospital, even overnight. It’s basically his second home, he’s become friends with Eddie’s doctors and nurses, closer to them than the Losers.

So of course the Losers are worried about Richie. He’s not coping healthily with this, and they do understand Eddie’s his boyfriend and all, but still. Richie’s even started skipping school frequently to spend the day with Eddie. Everyone’s worried about him, except himself.

Richie doesn’t listen to anyone when they try to tell him healthier, better ways to cope. He doesn’t listen when his mom calls the hospital, begging him to come home for the night. He doesn’t even listen when Bev calls and asks that he at least come over to her place to spend the night, or  _ God, Rich, even just go sleep in Eddie’s bed if it’ll help! Just please stop sleeping in that chair in the hospital room, please. _

Sure, he’s slept in Eddie’s room a few times since this started, but it’s just not the same as being with Eddie, and he feels bad for messing up Eddie’s pristine bed and never being able to make it the same way that Eddie did, no matter how hard he tries. So he ignores the begging and the calls and the pleading, and he stays in Eddie’s room every night, goes to school with an aching back, pops a tylenol or two at his locker in the morning, and then takes more before work because the ones from the morning have started to wear off and his back hurts again. He swings by his house for clothes after work, then goes back to the hospital, tells Eddie about his day, eats the gross hospital food for dinner, talks to Frank for a bit when he comes in, rejects his offer to come over for the night, and sleeps in the chair. Then he does it all over again.

It’s a constant, unhealthy cycle, that’s only gotten worse as time goes on.


	26. Chapter 26

_ December 31, 1994 _

It’s New Years Eve, and Richie’s spending the time in the hospital room with Eddie. Only a few things have changed, Richie’s stopped caring for himself now, too depressed to try, so his hair’s grown into a sort of mullet thing and he’s even started growing a bit of facial hair that makes his face itch constantly. Eddie’s also started to squeeze his hand back sometimes, which makes Richie’s heart soar with excitement every time, no matter how much Eddie does it. Because it means he’s getting better. The doctors have even said he might wake up soon, within the next week or so.

Richie’s excited, happy about it, but he can’t help but think about the events of last year as he grips Eddie’s hand tonight, watching the small TV in the corner of the room. Some random singer’s on the TV, singing a cheesy romance song as everyone waits for the ball to drop in ten minutes. Richie remembers last year, and his and Eddie’s first kiss, feeling so fucking nervous and finally squiashing the nerves away and kissing Eddie. And now they’re dating, and Eddie’s in a coma because of the drugs Richie was supplying him with. Him a year ago would never have predicted this, not in any way.

Richie watches the steady rise and fall of Eddie’s chest, listens to the rhythmic beeping of the heart monitor and the music on the TV. He squeezes Eddie’s hand, and Eddie squeezes back, a weak squeeze, but still a squeeze.

He stares down at where they’re hands are clasped together, where he’s rubbing gentle, soothing circles on the back of Eddie’s small hands. It’s a habit he’s picked up since Eddie first entered the coma, and Eddie seemed to like it. Well, Richie guesses he does, because his usually high heart rate goes down to normal when Richie does it, so he guesses he likes it.

Suddenly, the beeping is replaced by a louder noise, a loud, steady beep. The heart monitor isn’t going up and down anymore, it’s just a straight line. Richie feels like he can’t breathe, all of a sudden.

Then there are nurses, a bunch of them, and a doctor, all rushing in and pushing him out. They’re shouting at him that he can’t be in there even though he’s pushing against them, eyes teary as he shouts that he  _ needs to be with Eddie _ . His attempts are futile, however, because in the end he’s stuck outside of the door, listening as they try to revive the boy in the hospital bed.

Richie leans back against the wall next to the door, sliding down it and bending his knees up to his chest before slipping his arms around his legs to grasp them against his chest. He yanks his glasses off, flinging them away and listening as they hit something and land God knows where, and then buries his head in his knees, and he cries.

He cries into his knees, loud and without caring if others hear. Eddie just  _ died _ . And even though the doctors are in there fixing it, making his heart beat again, he’s dead. And the doctors might not be able to fix it, despite their attempts.

The countdown for New Years starts, and the two nurses sitting at the desk a few feet away start counting down quietly with it. Richie wants to, that had been his plan, count down with Eddie and then kiss him on the forehead since it would be kind of weird to kiss him on the lips when he’s in a coma. But that chance was destroyed for him.

He’s happy for the two nurses, though, that get to enjoy their holiday, even if they’re at work during it. 

As the ball drops, Richie stops crying, continues staring at the nurses as they kiss each other, the cute fucking lesbians. He guesses they assumed it was safe because no one else was in the hallway and last time they looked at Richie he wasn’t looking. And he’s also pretty sure that’s not the most professional thing to do, but whatever.

“Congratu-fucking-lations to you guys.” He mutters, hoping they won’t hear it, but they do, turning to him with looks on their faces like deer caught in headlights. “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna hate crime you. Just not in the best mood.” One of them, a redhead, lets out a relieved sigh. “Yeah, I’m sorry about your friend by the way, kid.” The other, a brunette, says, walking over and kneeling next to him in her scrubs. She places a warm, comforting hand on his shoulder and smiles sadly at him. “He’s gonna be okay, though.”

“You don’t know that.” Richie mutters, nose stuffy. He looks around for a minute, and realizes he can’t see and he threw his glasses so basically there’s no chance of him seeing anytime soon unless someone gets them for him. 

The redhead comes over at that second and hands him his glasses. “They’re a bit beat up, because they hit the wall, but they’re okay.” She says as Richie slips them on his face, finally able to see without everything looking like a terribly animated video game, all pixels. The door to Eddie’s hospital room opens then, and all the nurses and doctors walk out, stressed and tired. 

“He’s okay, alive. A bit tired, but alive. And, he’s awake.” The main doctor tells Richie, and the nurses crouching down next to him stand, the redhead even offering a hand to help him stand. He doesn’t take it, instead stands on his own and walks into the room. He freezes in the doorway, seeing Eddie smiling tiredly at him.

“Hey. Guess I missed the New Years kiss?” He asks, voice hoarse from months of not speaking. There are dark circles under his eyes, which is funny, because he’s literally been asleep for months, and yet he’s still tired. Although being unconscious and sleeping probably aren’t the same thing.

Richie laughs at the dumb attempt at a joke and walks over to Eddie, sitting in the same chair he always does. He takes Eddie’s hand in his own, and smiles at his boyfriend. 

“God, I missed you.” Eddie squeezes Richie’s hand. “Why? I was right here, you fucking sap.” Richie laughs again, a tear streaming down his face despite the face he was just crying a few minutes ago. “Yeah, physically, but you couldn’t talk. Don’t call me a sap, you’d miss me too.”

“Yeah, I would.” Eddie says, reaching over and turning off the TV. Now it’s just people celebrating the new year, the boring shit. There’s silence, neither of the boys speaking.

“I almost killed myself.” Richie murmurs, thinking back to that day when he stood on the edge of the rooftop, looked down, hoped he landed right when he fell and died. Eddie’s smile drops, and he lets go of Richie’s hand. He scoots over, with a bit of difficulty because of all the tubes connected to him, and then pats the bed next to him. 

“C’mere, Rich.” The lanky boy nods and climbs onto the cramped hospital bed with Eddie, cuddling into his boyfriend’s side for the first time in months. “I never thought I’d be back here, in the hospital. After my mom, and all the times she made me go to the hospital for nothing, like literally just a cough would get me brought here, okay? Anyways, after that I made a vow to never get put back in a hospital if I could help it, and then I was a dumbass and took Xanax and drank at the same time.” The redhead from earlier comes in with a cup of water for Eddie. 

“I’m sure your throat’s dry. You’re very hydrated, ‘cause of the IV, but it probably still hurts to talk, so here.” She glances at Richie, curled into Eddie’s side. “ _ Technically _ I shouldn’t allow this, but I’ll give you guys ten minutes and then you’ve gotta get out of the bed, ‘kay four eyes?” Richie nods. “Okay, seeya in ten.” And then she leaves and closes the door.

“Were you able to hear me that whole time?” Eddie nods. “Yeah, and I could feel you holding my hand, too.” Richie blushes out of embarrassment, because if Eddie really could hear everything he said, then that means he heard all the terrible childhood stories Richie told him, like the time Maggie forced him and Cora to take a bath together when they were two and Cora shit in it.

“Oh God.” He mutters, burying his head in Eddie’s hospital gown clad chest. Eddie laughs, hugging Richie’s body up to his. He’s missed the cuddling just as much as Richie has.

“Yeah, I heard the poop story.” Richie blushes harder. “Noooooo. You didn’ttttttttt.” He states, voice muffled by Eddie’s chest. The brunette laughs again, looking up as the door opens and Frank comes in. “Yes. I did. That’s fucking disgusting, by the way. Why did you touch it?” Richie tries to bury himself deeper into his boyfriend’s chest. “Noooooooooooooo.” 

Eddie laughs, the nurse comes in to shoo Richie off the bed, and all is well. Richie sleeps with his head propped on his arm on the bed, holding Eddie’s hand, and Frank leaves around two o’clock, leaving the boys alone.


	27. Chapter 27

_ July 4, 1995 _

Eddie gets to go home a few days after waking up, once he’s had everything checked and he’s deemed to be in grade-A health. Frank watches Eddie get all the pills and flush them, and says that he’ll let Eddie just go through withdrawals and shit at home as long as he promises not to do anymore drugs. Eddie nods, throws the orange bottles away, and agrees happily.

He goes back to school, catches up quickly, and graduates with everyone else to go on to senior year. Reddie, their ship name that Patty made, is doing better than ever. Mike and Bill get together, as do Patty and Stan, and Ben even gets over his crush on Beverly and takes a chance with Julie. They’ve lasted a month, longer than any of Julie’s past relationships.

All is well as the group meets up in the park to watch the fireworks. 

It quickly gets dark and the show starts, everyone around them watching the sky and the bright lights. Eddie does, too, resting his head on Richie’s shoulder despite the homophobia of Derry. He doesn’t care. He’s got the Losers, Richie, and Frank, and he doesn’t need anyone else. People can call him whatever slurs they want, he doesn’t care. Because his friends, his  _ family _ , because the Losers are basically family to him now, they won’t leave, no matter what. Even when he was having  _ major _ anger issues from withdrawals at first, the Losers didn’t budge. They shouted back at him and called him names too, and five minutes later they were back to joking around and throwing popcorn at each other.

It had been the hardest on Richie, on the days Eddie was in pain from them, or so anxious he physically shook, or just couldn’t sleep. Eddie always tried to claim it was nothing, but Richie always saw right through him, and he was continue to press until Eddie finally broke and told him what was wrong. And Richie always seemed to suffer when Eddie was suffering, but he would put Eddie before himself. If Eddie was anxious, he would put on a movie or some music to distract him. If he couldn’t sleep, Richie would hold him against himself until he heard Eddie’s soft snores.

There were still days, sometimes, where Eddie craves a Xanax. But that’s a given. You can’t just go cold turkey and expect to never want that thing again. Addictions never fully go away, no matter how long you go without doing the drug, drinking the alcohol, whatever. The itch for it never fully stops. But it does become less prominent, easier to ignore, as time goes on. Except the really bad days, where Eddie just wants nothing more than to die without the pills. He’s only had about three of those, they don’t happen often, but on those days it’s easier for him to just skip school and hang out with Richie for the day.

Luckily, today wasn’t a bad day for his symptoms. He hadn’t wanted a pill at all that day. It was a good day in general. A calm day, not too hot even in the middle of summer, and now the Losers are all hanging out and watching the fireworks. It’s nice.

Until there are gunshots.

Richie practically jumps into action, standing, grabbing Eddie, and shoving the smaller boy behind himself. Eddie looks around, trying to spot the shooter, and finding him on the edge of the park. It’s Henry Bowers, covered in blood, with a huge, insane smile on his face.

“Rich, fuck, he’s over there.” Eddie states, pointing over to Henry, who’s just shooting at everyone. “Fuck- I- okay, let’s fucking go! Guys we need to fucking run!” The Losers had taken four cars, Richie’s, Mike’s truck, Bev’s car, and Bill’s car, but they run to Mike’s truck because it can hold all of them the easiest because of the bed of it. Mike piles into the driver’s seat, Bill next to him, and everyone else in the bed of the truck, and they zoom out of there, the gunshots getting quieter as they drive.

Eddie’s shaking as he curls into Richie’s side, watching the park until the truck turns aggressively and it gets out of his line of sight. There were so many bodies, none Eddie recognized, but a lot. Richie reaches his arm around Eddie’s shoulders, pulling him flush against himself. Despite how far the truck is from the park, none of the teens feel safe until they get to the quarry and park.

“Holy fuck.” Eddie breathes out, taking a moment to think about what just happened. “Yeah, ‘holy fuck,’ wanna go for a midnight swim?” Richie asks, just trying to change the subject. “Sure, why the fuck not?” Bev asks with a smile, shedding her flowery printed dress and running off the cliff, landing in the water just a moment later. “Did that hurt?” Eddie shouts over the edge to her as she comes back up, shaking the water from her hair like a dog. “Nope! Come on down, the water feels nice!” She shouts, swimming around in circles. Eddie sighs and watches Richie take his clothes off, dropping them on the gross ground and jumping in. Bill follows, then Patty, Violet, Ben, Julie, Stan, and Mike. Eddie’s the last left, looking down warily.

“Come on, Eds! You won’t die! Promise!” He sighs and finally sheds his clothes, actually folding them like Stan, and jumps from the cliff. There’s air rushing in his ears, his long curls flying around him for a second until the sharp sting of landing in the cold water. It really just stings his legs, and he’s up, above the water, a moment later.

“See? You’re alive!” Richie says, splashing Eddie with gross quarry water. Eddie scowls at him and splashes him back. Richie laughs, his glasses nowhere to be seen, and splashes Eddie again. “Where the fuck are your glasses?” Eddie asks with a sigh, looking around but not seeing them. Richie shrugs. “Dunno.” Eddie rolls his eyes, diving into the water to find the glasses, but he can’t find them. “Dammit, Richard! Guys, help me find his glasses.” 

Bill comes up with the thick glasses a few minutes later, tossing them at Richie. Of course, he doesn’t catch them, and they slip out of his grasp and fall back into the water with a plop. 

Eddie dives down and grabs them, grabbing Richie’s ankle as he’s down there to freak him out. Richie’s scream is muffled by the water, and Eddie comes up above the water with a laugh as he shoves Richie’s glasses back onto his face. As soon as the glasses are on, Richie shoves Eddie playfully. “Goddammit, Eds! I thought a mermaid was gonna take me away from you before I got to kiss you one last time!” Eddie rolls his eyes and pushes Richie back. “Idiot.”

The teens swim around a bit longer before getting out to airdry as best as they can before going home. They sit on a rock next to the water, listening to music from Mike’s truck’s radio that he turned on, keeping the windows open so everyone can hear it.

“Gotta piss. Be right back.” Eddie mutters after a few minutes, walking away and going to the woods. He does his business and turns around to go back to the others, only to be met with a gun to the temple and an angry looking Henry Bowers. He widens his eyes, anxiety pooling in his stomach for the second time that night.

“What the fuck?” He whispers as Henry pushes him against a tree. “Don’t fucking speak!” Henry hisses, taking the gun away but holding him securely against the tree. He turns Eddie around the face the tree, and Eddie knows what’s happening immediately. Of course Henry wouldn’t be happy his little touch buddy’s been gone for months. And now, instead of touching, he’s gonna do much, much worse.

Eddie’s not gonna let that happen, though. Even if it kills him, he’d rather be dead than be raped by Henry Bowers while he’s covered in blood. That’s basically asking for AIDS. And if he got AIDS he’d be dead too, like Freddie Mercury.

So Eddie screams. Loud.


	28. Chapter 28

_July 4, 1995_

Henry draws back, pulls his gun back out of the pocket of his jacket. He fumbles with it, aims it at Eddie, goes to shoot. But Richie’s already there, and Henry instead turns to him. 

“Shoot me. I don’t care. But not Eds.” Henry smiles evilly, turns the gun back against Eddie’s head. “Move any closer and I’ll do it.” He states, turning Eddie back around from when he had turned to face Richie, so he’s looking at the tree once more. “Don’t. Please, Henry.” Richie begs, voice cracking. He knows what Henry was trying to do before he got here, and he just hopes he won’t do it with Richie pleading, and there as a witness.

There’s police sirens not far away, meaning they’re on their way to the quarry. Someone probably saw Henry driving there. So Richie just has to distract him until they get there and get him.

“I won’t touch your boy toy, he’s a bit frail for me anyway. You, on the other hand.” Eddie fights against Henry’s grip, and Henry shoves him back against the tree. Eddie gets to at least turn his head to look at Richie in the commotion, and the look on Richie’s face. It breaks him. God, it breaks him. Because he looks like he’s actually thinking about it.

“It’s you or Eddie. Clock’s ticking. Ten seconds before _I_ choose.” Henry states, grip tightening on the gun against Eddie’s head. Richie breathes out shakily, and then he nods. “Me.” Eddie tries to fight against Henry again, protesting loudly, but Henry shoves him against the tree, the bark rough on his skin. “I won’t hesitate to shoot you, _fag_!” Eddie cries into the tree.

Henry lowers his gun, and Eddie moves away from the rough bark to look at Richie. But Richie isn’t looking at Henry, he’s looking at something behind him. Eddie turns his head a bit to look, and sees Ben back there, standing a few feet away, ready to run at Henry.

Richie nods, and Henry begins to walk towards him, and that’s when Ben springs into action. He’s on top of Henry in a second, and there’s a few gunshots as Henry empties his gun, but luckily no one’s hit. As soon as the gun’s empty, Ben takes it and tosses it away, but in that moment of lowered guard, Henry stands and Ben lands in the grass.

“You motherfuckers!” Henry looks past Eddie, at the cops drawing in. “Fine. Plan B, I guess.” He lunges at Eddie, grabbing his left arm and twisting until there’s the sound of a sharp crack and Eddie’s scream. It’s all over in a minute, too fast for anyone around them to do anything. But as soon as Henry’s getting off of Eddie, the officers around them shoot, and he’s down in a second, bleeding everywhere, body riddled with bullet holes.

Eddie sits up, cradling his arm carefully in his right hand. It hurts, feels like a jolt of electricity everytime he moves, but at least he’s alive. And not _that_ traumatized.

Richie’s there beside him in an instant, taking Eddie’s arm despite his protests. 

“I’m just gonna snap it back into place, okay?” He says, gripping the arm tightly. It hurts, and Eddie tries to pull his arm away, but Richie tightens his grip. “No, do not fucking touch me, Rich! Stop!” Richie doesn’t listen, moving the arm and snapping it back together. There’s a snap, and numbness in Eddie’s arm for a second, before even _more_ pain. Eddie screams again, and a few tears from the pain stream down his face. 

“Holy shit, Rich. Oh my fucking God, holy shit. Hospital.” Bev mutters, helping Eddie to stand. Eddie really doesn’t want to go back there, he just got out, but his arm hurts so badly he can’t say no.

Eddie steps over Henry’s mangled body and follows Bev back into the car, allowing her and Richie to help him into the bed of the truck. Once in there he rests his head on Richie’s lap, watching the sky and treetops zoom past as they drive to the hospital.

Richie helps him get dressed in the parking lot, because he was still in his soggy underwear from the quarry. It hurts his arm to do it, but it’s better than walking into the hospital half naked, so he accepts the pain with little complaint.

And an hour later he comes out of the hospital with a white cast on his arm and directions not to swim or otherwise get the cast wet, and that he can get it taken off in six weeks. He also gets a prescription for pain meds in case it starts hurting again, which Frank says is going to be monitored by him and kept in a secret place, away from Eddie. 

Eddie does get to go alone to get the prescription filled, under the promise of Richie going with him and making sure he doesn’t take any while on the way home, or even in the bathroom of the pharmacy or something.

He walks up to the counter, asks for prescriptions under his name, and Mr. Keene goes to the back to get them. 

Greta Keene, Mr. Keene’s daughter, sits in a chair behind the counter, reading a magazine. She eyes Eddie’s cast for a second, free of any writing, and closes her magazine. “Aw, no friends to sign your cast?” He looks down at it and shrugs. “Didn’t want it to get dirty.” She doesn’t seem to believe that, and stands, grabbing a sharpie from somewhere on the counter. “I’ll sign it for you.” She states, going in for it before Eddie can say anything. He watches her sign it, large neat letters, before pulling away with a smug smirk and sitting back down at her chair.

Eddie’s heart drops as he reads the thick lettering on his cast, spelling **Loser**. Right there, for anyone to see, for six weeks. A thick ball forms in his throat, he wants to cry. 

Mr. Keene comes back with the prescription, Eddie pays for it, and then he leaves, walking over to Richie, who’s leaning next to the door with a cigarette hanging from his lips. He furrows his brows at the upset look on Eddie’s face, and then looks down to the cast. He frowns, yanking the cigarette from his mouth and tossing it away despite it only being half smoked.

“Greta?” Eddie nods, handing the bag holding the bottle of pills to Richie. “She just grabbed a sharpie and wrote it before I could react. I feel like an idiot, I mean, I shouldn't've rested the cast on the counter anyway.” Richie shakes his head, his black curls bouncing on his forehead as he does. He’s finally cut his hair and shaved, after enough complaining about the scratchy hair when they kiss from Eddie. The small boy had been okay with the hair, but Richie had come over one day barren of facial hair and with shorter curls.

“Not your fault. Let’s just go, I’ll try and fix it.” Eddie shrugs, taking Richie’s hand with his good hand. “There’s nothing you can do except scribble it out.” Richie shakes his head again as the two begin to walk. “I’ve got somethin’ in mind.” 

That ‘something’ turns out to be grabbing the first sharpie he sees, a red one, and drawing a thick red **V** over the **S** in Loser, turning it to Lover. Eddie had taken the sharpie from his hands after Richie began to draw a dick below the word, and smiled his thanks at him for fixing the word before seeing the dick and slapping him angrily, which had just made Richie laugh. Eddie had rolled his eyes and kissed him, unable to stay angry at his boyfriend.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last chapter, also, i have no fucking idea how a graduation works because i’ve never had one, i’m only a freshman in high school

_ June 12, 1996 _

Graduation day for the Losers. Yeah, they were still going strong. Ben and Julie were together happily, Bev and Violet, too, Mike and Bill, and Stan and Patty. And obviously Richie and Eddie. Bev and Violet had already gotten ‘Married’ or as close to getting married as you could get in the late nineties, which consisted of getting each other rings, having a wedding at the Hanlon’s farm, with Richie officiating it, and kissing the bride. They couldn’t get legally married yet, but they were emotionally married, which is all that mattered to them. They’d even been talking about children after graduation. Bev wanted to go to college, but Violet didn’t, so the plan was they ask someone, most likely Mike because he looks most like Violet, to get Bev pregnant, have the baby, and try their best to figure it out from there. 

Richie and Eddie wanted to get ‘married’ as well, though not quite yet. They were going to give it a bit more time, just to be sure, even though they were pretty sure. Until then, they were going to LA, where Eddie’ll go to college and Richie’ll work on his dream of being a comedian, until then being a radio show host to help with the bills. Eddie wanted to be a nurse, to help people with his  _ extensive _ knowledge of health, medicine, and diseases.

Mike and Bill were going to Florida. Bill was going to work on becoming an author, he was already in the stage of publishing a book at the moment, and Mike, well, he still had no idea what he wanted to do, but he thinks about it every day. Ben and Julie were going to stay in Maine. Not in Derry, but in Maine, they were going to go for the Bangor area. And finally, Stan and Patty. They were going to Georgia, going to get married and definitely have kids together, someday. For now they weren’t taking it too fast, just at the right speed for the two, which is going to Georgia together and moving into a nice apartment.

It was kind of bittersweet. All the Losers, after two and a half years of friendship, being together through thick and thin, the most unlikely of friends, are going to break up. Not actually, they’re going to keep in touch, visit whenever possible, but physically they’re not going to be together. It’s nice, because everyone’s making it out of this hellhole alive, despite it all, and living the lives they want without worry. But it’s also bitter, because they’re not going to talk as much, hang out in the clubhouse or at the quarry. 

Eddie sighs as he watches Richie go up on stage to make his speech. He’s valedictorian, which isn’t a very big surprise. Despite Richie’s lewd personality and attention span of a squirrel, he makes amazing grades, even better than Stan.

“Hey, uh, hi. So I actually didn’t prepare a speech, I threw away the letter telling me I was valedictorian on accident. Oops.” He clears his throat, adjusts his glasses, and makes eye contact with Eddie. The brunette gives him a thumbs up and a smile, encouraging him as best as possible.

“Well, God, this whole- the whole four years of high school. For me, it was insane. I met the love of my life, uh, almost killed him, sorry about that, Eds. There was a shooting in the park, almost killed us again. Henry Bowers, too. He put me through hell, God.” Richie awkwardly chuckles, eyes racing around the crowd nervously. “How long does this have to be?” He asks the principal standing behind him. He laughs a little. “Five minutes, at least.”

“Fuck, okay, pardon the French.” A few laughs from the crowd. “I seriously have no fucking idea what to say, I’ve never been good with words.” Richie locks eyes with Eddie again. “I guess, just, never take anything for granted. Because you could lose it like that.” He snaps his finger. “Seriously. I met my soulmate, through dealing, which I’ll admit because I don’t do it anymore, and I almost killed him because of that. And then, when he was getting better, he almost died again, twice, in the same day. Both times, by the hands of Henry Bowers.” 

“Anyway, I know it sounds cheesy and I’m being really sappy right now, but I don’t care. It’s true. Live in the moment, don’t take anything for granted. Because everyday, I regret taking Eddie’s presence for granted before he almost died three times in the span of a few months. So just, tell the people you love that you love them, before it’s too late. Because it could be too late literally five seconds after the last time you spoke to them. Life is cruel, and it doesn’t take anyone’s feelings into consideration.” Richie clears his throat again. “Sorry, again, being sappy. That’s it. Please tell me I’ve been talking for long enough?” The principal nods. “Yes, you have. Good luck, Richie.” He hands Richie his diploma, and they continue on with everyone’s graduation. 

When Eddie goes up all the Losers cheer loudly, causing everyone else to, as well. He blushes brightly, cheeks burning red hot from all the attention, but he takes the diploma, shakes the principal’s hand, and then he’s officially free from high school. Free from this hellhole town. This hellhole state.

Diplomas end, everyone throws their graduation cap in the air, and then Richie drives Eddie home to finish packing. Towards the end of the year, after Richie’s eighteenth birthday, he moved in with Eddie, and they’ve been sharing a room. So now it’s their home until they move to the small studio apartment they picked out in LA a few months ago, during their spring break, when Frank had bought them plane tickets and let them look for possible residences in LA. And they had found one easily.

💊💊💊

_ July 15, 1995 _

Richie closes the final box, grabs the thick black sharpie from the hardwood beside him, and writes  **Eddie Clothes** on it. Eddie’s room is barren, no clothes on the floor, empty picture frames, a bed but no sheets on it. His radio’s gone, already in the car with Richie’s walkman and tapes. There’s a suitcase laying zipped shut on the bed, Eddie’s suitcase, and a dufflebag laying on the floor next to the window Richie snuck into that one night, unzipped and overflowing with clothes. Richie’s dufflebag.

He stands, lifting the box and taking it downstairs to the car. He shoves it into the trunk with the other boxes, slamming the trunk shut with a bit of trouble, and then joins Eddie, the Losers, his parents, and Frank on the front porch. The sun’s beating down harshly, but luckily they won’t be outside for long before they can get into the cool car and drive off.

Bev and Bill are actually  _ crying _ , and the others look like they’re fighting off tears. Except Stan and Patty. They left last week for Georgia. Now it’s Richie and Eddie’s turn, then it’s going to be Bev and Violet, and finally Mike and Bill. Ben and Julie still have no idea when they’re leaving, they’re just going with the flow.

“God, Rich. I’m gonna miss my best friend.” Bev says, lunging forward and pulling Richie into a hug. She pulls away after a second and turns to Eddie. “And I’m gonna miss my first kiss.” Eddie laughs and hugs her with a smile. “I’m gonna miss my first kiss and gay awakening too.” Everyone else laughs a little too, but the mood’s still dampened. The remaining Losers join the hug, Frank, Maggie, and Wentworth as well. And they stand like that for a few minutes until finally Richie breaks it up because he’s sweating.

Bev sniffles and joins her wife, slipping her hand into the backpocket of Violet’s jeans. “You guys are my favorite gays.” Violet says, drawing a  _ hey! _ From Bill and another sad round of laughter.

“Okay, well, we should get going. Love you mom, dad.” Richie says, getting a last hug from his folks as Eddie does the same with Frank. “We’ll all keep in touch, hang out whenever possible, right?” Julie asks, and everyone of course nods. “Yeah, ‘course.” Eddie grabs Richie’s sweaty hand, pulling him into the house to grab their bags, takes one last hug from the Losers, and then gets in the car.

Richie puts the car into drive, a few tears flowing out of his eyes as he drives off. Eddie watches the group out the windows as they even walk out into the road to see the two off, until he can’t see them anymore. And then he cries a little, too.

Richie reaches over and connects their hands, no longer sweaty as the car’s nice and cold from the air conditioning. He smiles sadly at Eddie, and Eddie reaches over with his free hand to turn on their mixtape. Africa by Toto comes on, and Eddie smiles sadly back at Richie.

Their hands don’t release each other’s until they pass the Two Whales diner. Eddie keeps crying until they’re five towns over, Richie doesn’t stop until they replace the mixtape with another one, one that Ben made for the Losers. He had made one for each of them, songs that portray that person well, and songs he thinks they would like. They listen to Eddie’s first, then Richie’s, and then even the mixtape he made for their relationship.

“This is nice.” Eddie says, disregarding the aching in his heart as all the memories of the Losers flow through his mind like a movie. Richie smiles at him. “Yeah, it is.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! God, I’m on the verge of tears writing this even though it’s a happy chapter. I just, this book, I’ve been working on it for so long. I really filtered myself into each of the characters, giving them different aspects of myself, and every day I would sit on my bed and write this book, even if it was just a paragraph. I would always add something. This book feels like a piece of me, I don’t know why. I don’t typically get so connected to books like this, but I just really liked it, and it just really became a part of me over these past months of writing it. In my opinion, which will no doubt change in a few months when I’m onto another book, this was my best book so far. And I hoped everyone enjoyed it as much as I did. I’ll be posting another book soon, so if you’re interested then look out for that. Until we meet again, goodbye.


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